


Out of Time

by stardropdream



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Life Is Strange Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: After six years in Arizona, Keith returns to his hometown of Altea Bay, Oregon and expects to just keep his head down, graduate, and focus on his photography. What he gets instead is a sudden arsenal of time manipulation powers and a chance meeting with his childhood best friend.There's a storm coming-- and Keith's the only one who can stop it.





	1. Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valkyriepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyriepilot/gifts).



> Fic request from [Jill](https://twitter.com/EphemeraBlossom), who asked for a Life is Strange AU! Thank you so much for your patience as I wrote this. 
> 
> No knowledge of the game is necessary to read the fic-- especially since I had to truncate a lot from the original plot to keep this fic at a somewhat reasonable length. For those of you who know the game, I hope you like the way I adapted it for sheith.
> 
> And a huge thank you to [Sarah](https://twitter.com/ailurea) for reading this over for me and being patient with my writing angst.
> 
> (Edited December 2019 for typos/grammar.)

Keith moves back to Altea Bay, Oregon after six years away and finds everything almost exactly as he remembers it. That’s the thing about small hometowns, Keith figures: it’s always going to feel like a photo tacked to the wall, a moment punctuated in time. 

He moves into the dorms at Black Lion Academy, meets the other students there, and focuses on his photography. He’s not thinking about Shiro at least twice every hour. He’s not wondering if Shiro still lives in the same house, going to the same diner, listening to the same music. He doesn’t wonder about Shiro at all. 

But then three weeks into term, he falls asleep in his photography class and dreams he’s scrambling up the hill to the old lighthouse at the edge of town and watching a massive storm swell and swarm the sky, bearing down on him. It’s the most vivid dream he can ever remember having, visceral and disorienting— it feels _real_. He can feel the rain striking his face, the wind whipping his hair, his hands clawing at the dirt as he struggles to run, run, run. He watches trees get yanked from the ground, watches the lighthouse crumble off the edge of the cliff. All around him there’s chaos and Keith can only feel terror. 

And just as quickly as the dream hits him, Keith feels himself startle awake when the bell chimes to signal the end of the school day. His forehead is sheened with sweat and his heart is galloping away in his chest. It felt so real, more real than anything else: like the universe itself reached into his mind and planted another piece of reality. Not a dream at all, but another life. 

Keith stumbles to pack everything up and head out of the classroom. He feels disoriented, like he’s in another dream and decentered. His feet are rubbery beneath him and the world shifts just a little out of focus. He jostles Lance on his way out. 

“Watch where you’re going, Mullet!” Lance says, a little too loud. Keith flinches like he’s hungover, Lance’s voice over-loud and rattling in his head. 

Hunk looks more concerned as they head down the hall. “Are you okay, man?” 

“He’s fine,” Pidge declares, shouldering up to Hunk so the four of them are walking in a concentrated line. “He was snoring through lecture.” 

Lance snorts at that. But Keith shakes his head. “I just, uh… Need some fresh air.” 

He ducks away just as they hit the front entrance to the school. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge head towards the front lawn. Pidge has a new drone to show the two of them and Keith thinks he’s invited along, but with Pidge it’s always a more implicit invitation than anything overt. Keith doesn’t mind the moment alone. 

He stands at the top of the steps and just sucks in a deep breath. Students stream around him, avoiding him like a rock in the river, but Keith doesn’t mind that, either. Since his acceptance to Black Lion, he’s been something of a loner. Or so Hunk tells him. Most of the students here have been going to school together for at least four years, and Keith’s the weird senior who showed up from Arizona. Whatever mysterious new guy veneer he had is long gone, especially because of his _piss sour attitude_ , as Lance calls it. Those three have been friendly to him, but it’s clear to Keith that he’s the outsider looking in. 

Keith’s gotten good at being alone, at least. 

It’s a warm day, that sort of soft honey weather that comes with Oregon autumns, and Keith just stands at the top of the steps and lets the sun beat down on him. It’s nothing like the Arizona heat, but it makes Keith feel nostalgic— he grew up here for the first twelve years of his life, after all. He remembers these golden-soaked days well, remembers running to the bus stop with Shiro, remembers—

Keith heaves a sigh and fishes his earbuds out of his pocket, turning on his music and trying to drown out his thoughts. He still feels heaved over by his nightmare, but his heartrate is starting to return to normal the longer he stands still. Soon, he reasons, he’ll forget about it entirely. 

It’s then, of course, that Keith remembers he needs to empty out his locker and grab his textbooks for his homework. With a sigh, he turns on his heel and reenters the school. It’s not too long after the last bell but the hallways are already empty of most students. Keith wanders down the long hallway, hands in his pockets and lost in his music. 

Once he’s at his locker, Keith spins the combination and shoves his textbooks into his backpack. The light streaks in through the skylights above the rows of lockers, and Keith looks down the hallway to watch dust motes alight on the air, each ray of light beaming a patch of sunlight on the floor. Keith admires the view for a quiet moment, the way the motes seem to dance in time to his music, and then reaches for his polaroid camera to snap a picture. 

Keith can’t speak to any particular reason why he prefers polaroid film. It isn’t nostalgic so much as aesthetic. Everything always looks a little distant when developed in the polaroid versus the higher-tech film he can’t even begin to afford. He’s heard Lance sneer about Keith’s choice in medium, but he also doesn’t really care what Lance thinks. To Keith, a photograph is a moment of distance— the subject and the artist. A developed photo shouldn’t look like it was plucked from reality, an image reflected perfectly, but instead be that visual reminder of the separation between one person to another. But at the same time, a polaroid is instant: it develops and he holds proof of something. 

When he says it like that, it all sounds really fucking pretentious. It’s the one thing he hates about going to a school like this; he likes taking pictures, but he hates having to put his thought process into words. He hates when people look at his pictures and think they know him, too. He almost decided against returning to school here, afraid he’d get stuck in art snobbery. 

He watches the film develop, how the photo comes into focus slowly, as if unfurling from a dream. The picture doesn’t capture the true golden light of the hallway, but it looks almost ethereal in the picture itself. Keith tucks the photo into his pocket. 

As Keith’s heading towards the entrance and passing through one of those beams of light, a blue butterfly wisps on the air around his head, floating as if on a breeze despite the still air. 

“Woah,” Keith says out loud, startled. He blinks up at the butterfly and finds himself following it. “Where’d you come from?” 

It’s beautiful and unlike any butterfly he’s seen in Altea Bay— he can’t recall ever seeing a butterfly with such electric blue wings before. Keith follows it instinctively through the empty halls before it disappears into the vent release over the boys bathroom. 

Keith considers then enters the boys bathroom, keeping his camera in hand and finger on the button. He looks around for where the butterfly might come out again, ignoring the dank scent that only a high school boys bathroom can exude and the haphazard graffiti on the walls. He walks past the three open stalls and the urinals. 

There’s a little nook where the janitor’s left some supplies for later: a bucket and mop in the corner, a fire extinguisher, an obscenely huge bundle of paper towels. Keith looks up at the ceiling just in time for the blue butterfly to appear again, skittering out of the ceiling vent and flapping its wings through the stale bathroom air. 

“Gotcha,” Keith whispers to himself and goes still as the butterfly floats around him. He waits until it lands, gently, on the handle of the bucket before he carefully kneels for the angle, camera at the ready. There’s a flash of his camera and the butterfly flaps its wings before taking flight again.

He hears the bathroom door open as someone walks in. Keith’s angle leaves him unseen in his little alcove. He stays kneeled there with a frown, waiting for his picture to develop. He hears the door swing open again and another person enter. 

“So,” one voice says as the door shuts with a decisive click behind him. His voice is deep, rich and warm— not that Keith makes a note of noticing men’s voices all that often. Usually. “Why’d you call me all the way up here?” 

“I want back in,” the second voice says. “You’ve been avoiding my texts.” 

“You’re seventeen.” The voice sounds tired, like this is a conversation he’s had before and he’s tired of it. “It’s not happening. I told you that.” 

Keith’s certainly missed whatever window of opportunity there is for someone hiding out in a bathroom to make himself known. Stepping out now will just make it awkward. He stares down at the picture of the butterfly before tucking it into his pocket and resigning himself to waiting for the two to leave. This isn’t his greatest moment, squatting in a corner of a bathroom, eavesdropping and waiting for his chance to escape. Keith stands slowly and slinks along the wall of the alcove, leaning there and waiting. 

“Fuck that. You’re only nineteen. You think that makes you better than me?” 

He hears the other guy sigh. A long silence follows before he answers. “It’s not a good crowd or scene. They’re not going to keep letting kids fight. Just forget about it.” 

“Come on!” the other guy’s starting to sound annoyed, frantic. “You don’t know what it’s like up here, man. I need this.” 

“Yeah, must be really difficult attending a prestigious school.” 

“ _Please!_ ” 

Keith feels himself stiffen at the boy’s tone. He knows it well. He’s used to desperate people after traveling Arizona with his mom— people desperate for a chance, for money, for food, for drugs. Anything. 

“Is this really the only reason you wanted me to meet you up here? I have to—” 

Anxiety claws up Keith’s spine, a thousand little spider’s legs. Keith glances around the corner of the alcove in time to see the guy talking get shoved back, a barely-there tap on the shoulder. Keith can’t quite see either of them at this angle— the guy with his back to him has dark hair and his shoulders are rigid, blocking the view of the guy with white hair. Keith frowns. 

“I’ll show you I can handle it!” the dark-haired boy says. 

Keith watches the first guy shove the second again, and what follows is a short scuffle. Keith isn’t sure if he should step in or say something, but before he can think to do so, the fight escalates. Keith ducks back behind the alcove again as the two shove one another harder, the dark-haired guy cursing. His voice is pitched high, desperate and pleading. The two of them are grappling with one another and Keith hears a pained grunt as he guesses one of them slams hard into a sink. 

Keith’s debating the logistics of stepping in without getting his face punched for his efforts when he hears a tiny gasp, the first drop of fear in the white-haired boy’s voice: 

“Wh— Why do you have a gun?” 

Ice runs through Keith’s veins and he whips around the corner shouting, “No!” 

“What the f—” the guy with the gun shouts, startled, and with his finger on the trigger, it’s more accidental than purposeful when a gunshot rattles over the walls. 

Keith flinches at the sound and when he opens his eyes, it’s to the sight of the white-haired guy collapsed on his knees, curled around himself and grasping his bleeding stomach. There’s blood everywhere, pooling onto the floor around his trembling body. Keith can’t see his face but knows it must be all twisted up in pain. 

“No!” Keith shouts, his hand held out in front of him—

And everything freezes.

 

-

 

Keith wakes up in his photography class just as the bell rings. All around him, students pack up for the day and the sun streams in from outside. 

And Keith has no idea how he got back here. He stares at the clock. 

_A dream?_ he wonders, staring around the room and frantically shoving his things into his backpack. He elbows his camera off the table and shatters on the floor, little pieces scattering everywhere. Keith curses, reaching out his hand instinctively. 

Time stops. Then rewinds. He feels the strangest sensation of the world stilling and warping around him, as if flowing back into his body, streaming up his veins. His camera bounces upward and rights itself on the table again. Keith stares at it, hand outstretched in shock. 

He just rewound time. Keith isn’t sure if he’s still dreaming or if he’s absolutely lost his mind, but he stares at his camera, righted and unbroken, and knows that’s what he just witnessed. 

“No way,” he whispers. 

He sits there in a stunned silence, unsure what to do next. And then, slowly, Keith shoves his camera off the table. It shatters on the ground, parts of it rolling away. Swallowing hard, Keith holds his hand out and concentrates. _Rewind,_ he thinks, and the world seems to bend around his head, the flow of time oozing backwards into his body. 

The camera unbreaks and falls upward once more, righting itself on the table. Keith sees an apparition of himself shove his elbow into the camera, then withdraw as the world rewinds itself. It’s like watching a motion blur, a rewinding VCR tape, scattered images without the whole. 

Keith stands abruptly, shoves everything into his backpack, and hurries out of the classroom. 

“Watch where you’re going, Mullet!” Lance says again without a trace of irony. He doesn’t realize he’s repeating himself. Keith’s _gone back in time_ somehow, or reversed time, or erased time. Something. 

Keith ignores him, trying to shove past him to get to the door. Hunk blocks his way, though, and he’s significantly harder to shove. “Are you okay, man?” 

“He’s fine,” Pidge says, “He was— Hey!” 

She squawks as Keith does manage to shoulder past them all and run down the hallway. One of the teachers yells after him to walk but he ignores her, ducking past people to get to the boy’s bathroom. (“Wow, he really has to go, huh?” he hears one student tell his girlfriend.) 

Keith skids into the bathroom and looks for the guy bleeding out. He’s not here— no sign of his white hair, the guy with the gun, no blood on the floor. His heart is running a mile a minute in his chest, and he doesn’t know what to do. It felt too real to be a dream. And he can’t explain Lance, Hunk, and Pidge saying the exact same thing, the clock on the wall showing the same time he’s already passed. 

Scrambling to the alcove, Keith looks around for the butterfly. Not here. But when he shoves his hand into his pocket, it’s there, perfectly developed and ethereal in its polaroid: electric blue wings softened slightly by the medium. The picture still exists. 

_I took more time before coming here,_ Keith reminds himself. He has to wait. If he waits here a few more minutes, the two guys will come in here and then— and then Keith isn’t sure. How do you steal a gun from someone? Maybe he should wait outside the door and warn them. 

Rather than doing that, Keith shoves the picture of the butterfly back into his pocket and picks up the mop, gripping it tight like a weapon. 

Keith braces himself and waits. Sure enough, ten minutes later, two people enter the bathroom. 

“So,” Keith hears the white-haired guy say, “Why’d you call me all the way up here?” 

“I want back in,” the other guy says. “You’ve been ignoring my texts.” 

Keith grips the mop tight, takes a deep breath to brace himself, and considers for a moment more. Emboldened, he hurtles out from behind the alcove and shouts, “Watch out!” 

He hits the dark-haired guy hard in the back of the head with the mop’s handle. The guy stumbles forward, hand flying up to cradle the back of his head. 

“What the fuck—” 

“Wha—” 

“Hey!”

The bathroom’s full of shouting but Keith’s scrambling with what to do— get the guy to safety, get help, call the police, kick this dude’s ass, steal his gun, _something_. 

“He has a gun!” Keith says just as the boy reaches for it. Keith hits him again with the mop. 

Keith scrambles backwards, ready to kick and fight— the guy’s turning towards him, hand straying to his belt. Keith’s ready to shove the gross end of the mop in his face if he has to, but then the white-haired guy grabs the other boy by the arm and twists it. Throwing all his weight against him, suddenly the gun isn’t an issue: the boy’s pinned down hard to the ground. Now with the upper hand, the white-haired guy’s other hand presses against the back of the other guy’s skull until he’s sprawled out on the bathroom floor. 

Keith looks up and meets the whited-haired guy’s eyes and finally gets a good look at him— and even with the white hair, the bigger build, the slash of a scar across his nose, Keith would know that face anywhere. 

“Shiro?” Keith gasps. 

“Keith?” Shiro answers, eyes wide. 

The world seems to freeze and converge on one point— Shiro. Shiro is here. Shiro is looking right at him, breathing heavily and pinning someone to the ground. 

Shiro seems to remember at the same moment as Keith that that’s the situation they’re in. Shiro looks down at the guy groaning, wriggling under Shiro’s unforgiving hold. Shiro grabs the gun from where it’s tucked into the guy’s pants and then stands, letting him go.

The guy scrambles to his feet instantly, staring at the two of them and groping for the door. “You’re fucking— insane!” 

He’s out the door in a second and Keith doesn’t even have time to process that it’s _Shiro_ standing right there before Shiro’s turning to him. 

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

“What?” Keith asks. 

“If we stay here, what do you think the security guard’s going to say when he comes in here and sees you with an expelled student holding a gun?” 

Keith opens his mouth to protest, but, well— he knows what it’ll look like. And Keith’s hardly a model student here, either, riding on a scholarship and keeping mostly to himself. 

“Come on,” Shiro says, grabbing Keith’s hand and running out of the bathroom with him.

Shiro doesn’t stop, pulling Keith along down the hallway, out the back door to Black Lion Academy, and racing down towards the parking lot. Adrenaline pumps through Keith’s veins and he doesn’t know how to process everything that’s just happened. Shiro’s grip is death-tight on Keith’s hand and Keith’s lungs protest the sudden sprinting. He can’t even think. He couldn’t get away even if he wanted to. He doesn’t know if he wants to. 

They run and run and run until Shiro throws open the passenger door to a beat-up old pickup and shoves Keith into it before he rounds the hood and pulls himself into the driver’s seat. They hurtle out of the parking lot in a way that is anything but subtle. The little plastic hula man on Shiro’s dashboard jiggles his hips all around during the bumpy exit. 

Now that they aren’t running and the threat of school authorities chasing them abates, Keith gulps down air and tries to make sense of it all. Shiro rounds a corner hard in the truck and Keith tips hard into the door, eyes on Shiro. 

“Shiro,” Keith says. 

He hasn’t seen Shiro in nearly six years and it’s shocking to see him like this. He remembers Shiro as a scrawny thirteen-year-old, black hair always falling in his eyes, jumping on Keith’s bed so he could stick plastic glow-in-the-dark stars onto Keith’s ceiling in a perfect recreation of the night sky in October, in honor of Keith’s birthday. 

The man in front of him now is a far cry from the scrawny kid Keith remembers before moving away. He’s huge, for one thing. Not just buff, but tall. There was a time, a very brief time, when Keith was eight and Shiro was nine, that Keith was taller than Shiro. Part of him still remembers Shiro that way. 

Shiro’s truck slows the further they get from Black Lion and soon Shiro’s just driving the speed limit. Keith stares at Shiro’s hands on the steering wheel— his left hand white-knuckled and his right hand—

“You got a prosthetic,” Keith says and then snaps his mouth shut. It looks like a state-of-the-art prosthetic, too, all sleek gunmetal and individually crafted joints for his fingers. 

“Yeah,” Shiro says and he still sounds a little breathless. He’s keeping his eyes on the road and not looking at Keith. Keith can see the tension in his shoulders, pinching up towards his ears. 

He doesn’t say anything else and Keith isn’t sure what to say, either. With the tension comes the awkwardness and it settles over Keith like a pall. 

He studies Shiro, instead. Keith remembers the scar over Shiro’s nose when it was a new injury, still dressed with bandages after his accident. The white hair is new, though. The prosthetic. He’s wearing a faded NASA tank top, frayed at the edges, and Keith recognizes it as something Shiro used to wear at thirteen despite absolutely swimming in the fabric. It clings to him now. There’s the full sleeve of tattoos running down Shiro’s left arm from shoulder to wrist. What should look like a haphazard smattering of images— stars and space, water and flowers, lions and leaves, streaks of color— looks purposeful and beautiful on Shiro’s body. 

“Shiro,” Keith says again. 

“Hi, Keith,” Shiro answers and there’s an almost smile hinting at the corner of his mouth. It doesn’t quite manifest, and the tension doesn’t ease from Shiro’s shoulders, but it’s something. 

“Do you, uh… still go by Shiro?” Keith asks, awkwardly. 

Shiro shrugs, eyes on the road. They’re curving around the long, steep side-roads leading away from the Academy, and the light is doing strange things through the trees, caressing over Shiro’s face like a promise. 

“What else would I go by?” Shiro takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?” 

“Who— _What_ just happened?” Keith asks rather than answer, twisting around to look over their shoulders, as if expecting there to be a high-speed chase following behind them, a full entourage of Black Lion security. There’s nobody else on the road, though, and Keith spins around again and slumps in the passenger seat, drawing his knees up. He glances over at Shiro.

Shiro shrugs for a third time, carelessly dismissive. “It’s nothing you have to worry about.” 

Once, Shiro would have told him everything that was bothering him. But then, that was six years ago and now he’s essentially sharing the car with a stranger. He doesn’t know Shiro anymore and Shiro doesn’t know him. Keith’s chest feels all twisted up. 

He has no memories like this, nothing to cling to— he moved away long before either of them were even allowed to start thinking about driving. He’s never pictured Shiro with white hair or tattoos, all those muscles. He’s way out of his depth. 

They drive in silence until Shiro says quietly, “So you’ve been here for a while, then?”

“I…” Keith trails off. He slumps in his seat. “Since the start of the school year, yeah.” 

Shiro hums. There isn’t judgement in the sound, but Keith feels it crawling up his spine all the same. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d still be in town,” Keith admits. “If you went off to college somewhere or… or something.” 

Shiro shakes his head. “I was accepted to a few places. But nothing I could afford.” His shoulders lift and then fall again, mouth hinting that same little smile. “I’m not a fancy art student like you.”

“I’m hardly that, either,” Keith mutters, then thinks to fish around his jacket pocket. He groans as he draws out his camera, the lens completely shattered from the fight in the bathroom. “Shit.” 

He glances up to see Shiro looking at him out of the corner of his eye, mouth thin in thought. When he sees Keith looking back at him, his eyes return to the road. 

“I have some tools back home,” Shiro says quietly. “If you want to try fixing it.” 

“I’ll need something small,” Keith answers.

Shiro holds out his hand to Keith, making sure he’s watching as he curls and uncurls the prosthetic fingers. They whirl faintly with the effort. “You think I can afford to have someone look this over? I have tiny tools.” 

“Yeah? That arm must have been expensive on its own,” Keith answers, watching Shiro’s hand return to the truck’s steering wheel. “I’m surprised.” 

Shiro’s quiet for a moment and then, once again, shrugs, like shaking off some sort of bad thought. “It was expensive,” he confesses. “I… had to do a lot to be able to afford it. I’ll be paying for it even after it stops working, at this rate.” 

“But it’s good you have it, right?” Keith asks. “I mean, I remember after the ac—” 

“It’s fine, Keith,” Shiro interrupts, and his words are gentle, but his eyes are distant. He slows the truck down as they leave the backroads and enter town. He turns onto the main drag and starts heading westward. 

“… I like your tattoos,” Keith mutters for lack of anything else to say. 

“Thanks.” 

Keith fiddles with his broken camera just to give himself something to do with his hands. “So, uh,” Keith asks, cringing a little at his inability to let them sit in silence. “What do you do now, if you’re not a student?” 

Shiro drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Odd jobs. Construction, mostly. Some night-shifts at the diner. Fishing during the silver runs. Mussel harvesting.” 

“Oh,” Keith says, eyeing Shiro’s biceps which are, frankly, bulging. “Guess you have to bulk up for that kinda stuff.” 

The light hits Shiro’s face and he almost looks like he’s blushing. Not quite, although the smile seems less guarded. “Ha,” he breathes. “I guess. Probably weird seeing me like this… What, last time you saw me, I still couldn’t walk again, right?” 

Something raw and wounded aches in Keith’s chest. He folds his arms over his chest and mutters, “Yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Shiro parrots and then goes quiet. 

 

-

 

“Wow,” Keith says, later, once Shiro pulls up in front of his house. “It looks exactly like I remember it.” 

He hops out of the car, marveling at the sight. It _is_ almost exactly as Keith remembers it. The peeling paint, the broken sconce on the front stoop, the tended garden. No grass lawn, unlike the neighbors, but instead a rock garden Shiro’s grandfather installed when Shiro was eleven and Keith was ten. Keith remembers being thrilled about it because it meant he could easily find pebbles to throw at Shiro’s window when they snuck out at night. Not that they ever did.

“Come on,” Shiro says, jerking his head so Keith will follow him and leading the way into the house. The inside is much the same as Keith remembers. It still smells that same dusty, pleasant smell that Keith always associated with _home_. Shiro’s house was always home to Keith, sometimes even more than the old house he used to live in with his dad. He half-expects Grandpa Ken to emerge from the kitchen and greet Keith like no time has passed at all. 

Shiro kicks his boots off and walks up the staircase. Keith toes his shoes off and follows Shiro up. He remembers exactly where Shiro’s room is, could find it blind. They turn to the right at the top of the stairs and Shiro shoulders open his door.

“Pretty sure the tools are around here somewhere,” Shiro says, heading towards his desk.

Keith stands in the doorway, taking in the similarities and changes to Shiro’s childhood bedroom. The furniture is in the exact same spots as before, although he thinks the curtains might be new. There are the same old NASA posters on one wall but new band posters and random pictures and drawings: a horse in a field, an out-of-date calendar from last year, _sun’s out guns out_ in weird typography.

Keith approaches the desk as Shiro digs through one of his drawers. On the desk, there’s a collection of loose papers, an ash tray with half a joint perched on the edge, and that same ugly lamp Shiro’s had since he was a kid. There’s a pile of sympathy cards on the corner. _We’re sorry for your loss,_ the cards say, _Your grandfather was—_

Peeking out beneath the cards, there’s a picture. Keith brushes the cards aside and sees Shiro with his arm around a man wearing glasses. Both of them smile at the camera. Keith stares at that picture for a long time.

Shiro notices, though, because without a word, he sweeps his hand over the desk, clearing it off, brushing the cards and the photo into a drawer before snapping it shut. He holds out a palm-sized toolkit to Keith.

“Tiny tools,” he announces and turns away once Keith takes them. He can’t tell if Shiro’s annoyed at him for snooping or not. 

Keith watches Shiro move to the bed and collapse forward onto it, pressing his face into his pillow. His tank top’s ridden up a bit, exposing a scarred back and the sharp cut of his hips.

Keith could turn back time, he realizes. He could reverse it so that Shiro didn’t see him snooping. But something stops Keith from doing it. Setting down his backpack and fishing out his camera again, Keith sits down at the desk and fiddles with the tiny tools, trying to pop out the lens and fix any other damage the camera might have suffered. 

“I think it’s busted,” Keith mutters, after a lengthy silence, and tosses down the world’s smallest screwdriver. He swivels around in the chair and finds Shiro’s rolled onto his side, hand tucked under his chin and watching Keith. Keith fumbles a little, then manages a quiet, “I’m sorry about your grandpa.”

Shiro breathes out and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling and not looking at Keith. “It was his time,” he says faintly, like he’s echoing someone else’s words. “He went in his sleep. It’s fine.”

 _It’s not,_ Keith wants to say. He knows how much Shiro loved him, how close they were. He doesn’t want to think about Shiro being alone in this house this entire time. 

“I can’t really afford this place on my own,” Shiro tells the ceiling. “But I haven’t gotten around to trying to sell it.” Before Keith can say anything to that, Shiro scoots to the edge of his bed and starts groping around beneath it, feeling for something in the many boxes stored under there. He finds what he’s looking for after a moment, holding out a polaroid camera to Keith. “Here. You can have this… replace the one you broke.”

“I can probably find one to borrow for the school year,” Keith hedges. He recognizes the camera. “That was your grandpa’s, wasn’t it?”

Shiro keeps holding the camera out, stubbornly. “Your birthday’s next month. Consider it an early gift.”

Something pangs in Keith’s heart— Shiro remembers his birthday— and he takes the camera from Shiro, holding it gingerly in his lap. He wants to refuse it and, at the same time, is terrified of refusing anything from Shiro. 

“Thanks, Shiro.” He digs in his pocket and pulls out the picture of the butterfly, hesitating for a second before offering it to him. “Here.”

“What’s this?” Shiro asks, taking it.

“Think of it as an exchange,” Keith shrugs. There’s a butterfly tucked under a stream of water on Shiro’s tattoo, so he figures it isn’t a totally off-base gift. 

Shiro almost smiles. “You don’t have to give me anything in exchange. It’s kind of my fault your camera broke, anyway.”

“How is it your fault?” Keith asks, brows crinkling up as he frowns.

Shiro shrugs. “I doubt you were camping out in the bathroom waiting to pick a fight.”

It’s not too far from the truth, all things considered— Keith really _was_ camping out and waiting for a fight. Keith stares down at the camera, thinking about his two nightmares— the storm over the lighthouse and watching Shiro get shot without even knowing it was him. He fumbles with the flash on the camera, flipping it up and back down again. 

“Weird that’s how we meet again,” Shiro says, quietly, sitting up on the edge of his bed. 

Keith frowns and looks up at him. “I— I wanted—”

“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro interrupts. “I don’t blame you for not contacting me.”

“I wanted to.” Keith fidgets, sighing and hitching his legs up onto the chair, curling his arms around his knees. “I wanted to call you. So many times.” 

“I told you not to,” Shiro dismisses. “You were just doing what I asked.” 

“I know we agreed we both needed space and time, I just…” Keith fumbles, trailing off. “By the time I tried to call, Mom and I had moved around so much and— and I wasn’t sure if—” 

“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro says again. “I didn’t call, either.”

“You didn’t have my new number,” Keith protests. 

Shiro shrugs, not looking at him. “It’s in the past.” 

And maybe it is in the past. It was hard for Keith to think about it. It’s still hard to think about it. Too much happened in that one year— Keith losing his dad and finding his mom, states away. Shiro’s accident. Keith moving away. Shiro’s physical therapy. They’d tried talking a few times on the phone even after Keith moved, but it was too much. 

_I just need space, Keith,_ Shiro told him in their last phone call together, voice so quiet and so broken and so distant. Heartbroken. _I just need to be alone._

_You’ll be better off without me,_ Shiro hadn’t said and Keith’d been too young to identify it for what it was. His heart was too broken from losing his dad and best friend and hometown all at once, even if it meant learning about and meeting his mom for the first time in exchange. 

It’d been too much then. And now, here Keith is, sitting in Shiro’s room six years later. 

“I missed you,” Keith says. 

Shiro looks startled, eyes blinking wide, as if he hadn’t expected Keith to say that, or to even feel that way. 

“Yeah,” Shiro says and smiles, really smiles this time. It makes him look instantly younger, just like the little boy Keith used to know. “I missed you, too, Keith.” 

Keith smiles back helplessly. Relief floods through him, a slow unspooling of so many years between them. It’s almost painful, almost physical, all that space between them. Keith spent the years in Arizona sure that Shiro must hate him, must have forgotten all about him, after that last phone call— that in leaving, Keith had finally pushed Shiro too far away. Seeing Shiro’s smile now, Keith hopes that he’d been wrong in that thought.

“Any messages from Black Lion?” Shiro asks. “Anybody accusing you of coming after them with a gun?” 

Keith frowns and pulls out his cellphone, checking for messages. There isn’t anything on his phone aside from a voicemail from his mom she left this morning and a text from Lance asking him if he’d pissed his pants after class. No campus-wide alerts to a lockdown or stricter curfew, and no message for Keith himself. 

“Nothing,” Keith says.

“Figures.” Shiro scrubs a hand through his hair, sighing. “Daniels wants back in so he wouldn’t throw me under the bus, I guess.” 

Keith tucks his phone away and frowns at Shiro. “What was all that? Where did you learn to fight like that, anyway?”

The Shiro he knew, six years ago, lasted exactly two weeks in karate before he told his grandpa he wanted to start going to science club instead. Shiro never liked fighting.

Shiro sighs, looking uncertain. “I learned.” He almost leaves it at that but fidgets enough that Keith knows he’s just collecting his words. “The truckers who come through town, up the 101? They like to gamble. The fishermen host a fight club. I fought a few times. It’s stupid but it made for quick cash.” 

“A fight club? Seriously?” 

“It was either that or sell drugs,” Shiro says, his expression darkening— not anger at Keith, he realizes, but at himself. “Anyway… I’ve been avoiding it lately. It isn’t— good.” 

It sounds made up, really, but Keith doesn’t suspect Shiro of lying, either. It just sounds so bizarrely past anything he’s ever experienced. But then, his memories of Altea Bay are hazed by childhood; Keith understands the reality of small towns more than that, has seen his fair share moving around Arizona with his mom. 

“Shiro—”

“I should get you back to campus,” Shiro says abruptly, standing and moving away from Keith. 

Keith doesn’t know what to say and just follows him, unzipping his backpack carefully and placing Shiro’s camera there. He nearly trips down the stairs in an effort to catch up to Shiro, who stands silhouetted in the open doorway, toeing on his boots.

“Wait,” Keith says and Shiro stops, turning to look at him. “Before you take me back… let’s go to the lighthouse?” 

Shiro studies his face for a moment and then turns away with a smile, holding the door open to Keith. “Someone’s feeling nostalgic.”

Keith thinks of the nightmare from earlier today, and, beyond that, all those times they snuck up there as kids, pretending to be space pirates and sea pirates at once. 

“Yeah, something like that.” 

 

-

 

The lighthouse is exactly like Keith remembers it, both from his nightmare and his childhood. There’s the map of Altea Bay mounted on the surrounding cliff’s fence, overlooking the town itself. There’s the carving in the plastic paneling of the map where a young Shiro and Keith had tried to draw a pirate’s map in the corner, X marks the spot. There’s the old bench near the lighthouse, overlooking the Pacific Ocean beyond the bay, the back of it covered in old gum that Shiro always, always complained about as a kid. The lighthouse itself is the same as always, its paint sun-faded and its light blinking in its automatic rotation. There’re the big stones all up the hillside and the artifacts of a haphazard campfire from the summer. 

The sun’s sinking towards the horizon now and the ocean is a blaze of orange fire and frothy wake stained pink. Keith shields his eyes with his hand and looks out over it. Nothing, for miles and miles. There’s the smallest dot of a freighter heading out into the open sea but, beyond that, only endless tables of water. 

He feels Shiro step beside him, hands in his pockets, the sun glinting off his prosthetic and shining in his hair. He’s so different from how Keith remembers, and yet so similar to how he knows him. He’s handsome, but Keith’s always thought that in his own way. His eyes are still the same as Keith remembers, if older. 

Keith takes a deep breath, that crisp scent of sea air and autumn, and suddenly he isn’t watching a rosy sunset at the lighthouse with Shiro— he’s in the middle of a storm. 

It’s just like his nightmare from this afternoon. The sky is dark and angry, flashing lightning and rumbling thunder. The trees rip around him, torn from their roots. There’s the waterspout beyond the bay, twisting around and sucking water up into it as it slams towards Altea Bay. The air is thick with debris— tree branches, sand, torn off pieces of house. 

A newspaper hits Keith in the face and he wrenches it back, staring in horror at the date: this Friday. 

“Wait—” Keith screams into the wind but nobody’s there to hear him. 

“Keith!” someone shouts, although he can’t see anybody. 

He hears someone calling him as he stares up at the lighthouse, crumbling and falling towards him and—

“Keith!” 

Keith jostles back into his body and it’s that same golden-hued late afternoon and Shiro’s kneeling in front of him, hands gripping Keith’s shoulders tight. 

“Shiro?” 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks, helping Keith sit up. “You fainted.” 

His hands are gentle on Keith, if firm, keeping him upright. Keith keeps blinking, trying to clear his vision, trying to remember the line between reality and dream. Except, something’s telling him that these aren’t just dreams. 

Shiro digs around in his pocket and then curses, quietly, before taking up the edge of his tank top and lifting it, pressing it to Keith’s nose. Like that, Keith gets a good look at Shiro’s stomach, rippled with muscle and torn apart with scars. 

Shiro wipes his face and, with a pang of regret, Keith realizes that Shiro’s cleaning away a nosebleed. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Forget about that,” Shiro says, touching his face and studying his eyes. “Are you okay? Maybe you hit your head when you fell.” 

Keith shakes his head. He’s seen the same nightmare twice in one day. And this time, he wasn’t sleeping. 

A flake of snow lands on Shiro’s nose. 

“Wh—” Keith begins and looks up. As the sun sinks lower towards the horizon, Keith watches heaps of snow start falling despite the seventy-degree weather. 

“It’s snowing?” Shiro asks, perplexed, little flakes of snow stuck in his hair. He looks around, completely taken aback. “It’s— there aren’t any clouds.” 

Keith can’t explain the certainty that settles in his stomach that accompanies a coiling fear. His nightmares weren’t just nightmares, he thinks. They’re visions.

And a storm is coming. 

“Shiro,” he says, taking a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell you.”


	2. Focal Point

Keith stays up until four in the morning scouring the internet for _any_ information on legitimate, real time travel powers. Or time magic. Or time manipulation. Or whatever combination of keywords he can summon from his sleep-addled brain. 

Keith’s alarm goes off at six in the morning. 

He wakes up with a headache but whether it’s from sleep deprivation or eye strain, Keith isn’t sure. The fact that Keith could steal away two hours of sleep is nothing short of a miracle, if he’s honest. He feels too keyed up. 

Whatever yesterday was, Keith needs to figure it out. That’s easier said than done, though, when he has no idea how to even start. Keith’s explanation to Shiro yesterday felt nothing short of raving. There’s no logical explanation for what he was able to do, and yet here he is. 

Now it’s a matter of figuring out what it all means. And what it means for the visions. The date couldn’t have been a mistake. 

He groans as he rolls out of bed, groping around his messy dorm room floor for his preferred red hoodie. He could easily sleep for twenty more hours, but after telling Shiro everything at the lighthouse, Shiro made him promise to get breakfast this morning so they could talk about it more. He’s not about to stand Shiro up. 

Keith rubs his eyes, trying to clear away both sleepiness and his headache, and curses his absolute existence. Failing that, he shrugs on clothes for the day, nearly slipping his hoodie on inside out. He’s can’t find a matching pair of socks and resigns himself to a stripe and polka dot combo. The daunting task of dressing himself complete, Keith slumps back onto his mattress, resisting all desire to just lie back down again and forget the world. That desire almost wins out right before he hears the little chirp from his phone. 

He unlocks his phone to see a new message from Shiro— a first for this cell phone, a first since leaving Altea Bay as a kid. Maybe Keith’s still too sleepy, but the thought makes him feel tender inside, like he’s about to melt away into nothing. Or maybe that’s just the sleep deprivation talking. 

Beyond the opening _This is Shiro_ text in their message history, there’s the new message from Shiro right below it: 

**From Shiro, sent 6:04am:** Grabbed us a table. See you soon?

Keith sighs, trying to summon up the willpower to make his way downtown and see Shiro. He sighs again, for good measure, and types out his response. 

**From Keith, sent 6:06am:** on my way

He’s such a liar. Keith curses his entire existence again as he foregoes a shower like a disgusting mongrel, slips on his shoes, and heads for the bus stop. He can’t even appreciate the pretty morning light. There’s a squirrel ducking along the lip of the fountain in front of the school and Keith doesn’t even pause to take a picture of it. 

**From Shiro, sent 6:08am:** Got us the good booth in the back 😗☕

Keith stares for a very long moment at that emoji, absolutely perplexed by its existence and the fact that Shiro’s apparently using emoji in his texts now. When they were kids, they barely ever used their phones in the first place. There has literally never been a moment when Keith wondered if Shiro would use emoji. 

**From Keith, sent 6:08am:** no emoji  
**From Shiro, sent 6:09am:** 🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄

Keith can’t help the little laugh that chuffs out of him. He pockets his phone as the first bus of the morning pulls up at his stop. It takes him fifteen minutes to get downtown (and he ignores Shiro’s _Hurry up, slowpoke 🐌!_ text) and slog his way to the Two Whales Diner.

It looks exactly like he remembers, the old neon sign and the salt-blasted brass handles to the front doors. When Keith sticks his head in, Shiro’s at the end of the long row of booths, waving him over. He’s sitting in the booth they used to huddle in whenever Keith’s dad would take them out for breakfast. Nostalgia blooms in Keith’s chest. 

Knowing that he looks like an unshowered gremlin wearing yesterday’s jeans, Keith really can’t help but notice how handsome Shiro looks in comparison. He sits with his arms folded on the table, looking out the window, watching the trucks lumber by on the 101. The sun touches his face and he looks, for a moment, like he isn’t even really there. Less poetically, Keith notes that he’s wearing a beanie hat and a clingy black tee that dips into a low enough vee to hint at his chest. 

It’s devastating. 

It is way too early in the morning for this. 

Shiro turns his head as Keith approaches, immediately perking up. 

“Took you long enough,” he says. If it were anyone else, Keith would bristle, but from Shiro it feels enough like old times, teasing and lighthearted, like they’ve never spent years apart. Keith drops into the opposite seat in the booth with a grunt. 

Shiro pushes a full cup of coffee towards him and Keith gratefully gulps it down in three big swallows. It should burn his throat, but the Two Whales has always served lukewarm coffee. 

“Damn,” Shiro says, impressed, when Keith lowers his mug down. 

“Mmmrgh,” Keith answers, eloquently. He feels too groggy to feel triumphant that Shiro smiles a bit, hiding it behind his own coffee mug. Shiro’s eyelashes fan across his cheeks when he closes his eyes and drinks. Little bits of his white hair peek out of the beanie, nearly falling into his eyes. 

“Any luck finding info?” Shiro asks him once he gives Keith a few minutes to get control of his life again. 

Keith shakes his head. “No. Just sci-fi stuff. How am I supposed to tell what’s real and what’s fake? It could all be true for all I know.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees. “It was the same for me— just a bunch of junk.” 

Keith rubs his face and peers at Shiro through his fingers. “You were looking, too?” 

“Of course,” Shiro says, sipping his coffee. “Two heads are better than one, right?” 

“So… So you really believe me?” Keith asks. “You’re going to help me?” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

Shiro says it so casually, so kindly. There are plenty of reasons, Keith thinks, starting with the fact that he sounded insane yesterday when he explaining everything to Shiro. That and, he reminds himself sadly, they don’t really know each other anymore. Shiro would be fully justified in thinking Keith’s out of his mind and leave it at that, darting out of Keith’s life as quickly as he returned. 

“I can’t exactly prove that I have powers,” Keith mutters. 

“Sure you can.” Shiro perks up, looking around the diner. His sweep over the patrons, gaze assessing. “Just pay attention to what happens in the next few minutes, then rewind time and tell me about it.” 

Keith scrunches his nose up. “Sounds pretty bland.” 

“Says the guy with time powers,” Shiro teases. “You’re like a superhero, Keith.” 

“Please,” Keith snorts. “You’re the real superhero for being willing to help me with— whatever this is. You know, putting up with my nonsense and drama.” 

Shiro smiles at him, resting his chin in his hand, elbow on the table. He lifts his eyebrows at Keith, a silent dare and invitation to use his powers. 

Keith sighs and looks around the diner, observing everything happening. It’s mundane stuff at first: a stool scraping the floor as someone wanders to the bathroom, the bell over the door jingling as a mother and her baby enter the diner, a car honking outside. Hardly the stuff of superpowers, Keith thinks. The jukebox playing an old song shorts out and skips its record before stopping abruptly, prompting someone to get up from the table beside it and kick it with his boot. One girl sitting behind Shiro in the booth next to theirs giggles and calls her girlfriend a silly baby. 

He looks at Shiro again and finds him smiling back at him, almost endeared. Keith gives the littlest cough and ducks his head, then concentrates— holding out his hand and coaxing time to unwind itself around his fingers, urges it back to the place it once was. 

As the world warps around him and returns him to a few moments before, he hears Shiro say, “You’re like a superhero, Keith.” 

“Please,” Keith answers, then tells him everything that’s about to happen. It unfolds just as Keith says it will; it’s hardly exciting, but Shiro looks like it’s the most amazing thing in the world, like he’s walking on Mars for the first time. Keith can’t pretend it doesn’t warm him from the inside out, to know that he’s the reason Shiro’s smiling like that. 

For a moment, it’s like no time has passed at all. It’s in these small moments that Keith _aches_ , realizing just how deeply and cosmically he missed his best friend. 

_I should have called him,_ Keith thinks miserably as Shiro barks a surprised laugh when the jukebox shorts out. He looks at Shiro now and aches for all the years he let drift by. 

“That’s amazing, Keith,” Shiro says, once the girl behind Keith calls her girlfriend a silly baby and they start giggling. Shiro’s eyes are so bright in the early morning. 

Keith feels a blush creep up the back of his neck. “It’s— well. I guess it kind of is.” 

He can’t help but smile, especially when Shiro grins back. 

Their food arrives after that and they eat in silence. Keith wolfs down his food and drinks another two cups of coffee before he’s satisfied that he isn’t about to keel over. It’s still way too early. Shiro eats a little slower but finishes off his entire plate, even the orange slice garnish. He nibbles it down to the rind, pinched delicately in his prosthetic fingers. 

“Do you have time?” Shiro asks. “Or do you need to get to class?”

Keith checks the time on his phone and shakes his head. “I have time.” 

“Let’s go, then,” Shiro says. “I want to test out what else your powers can do.” 

 

-

 

Shiro drives Keith into the woods, past a dirt road and some houses tucked away in the trees. They end up near the town’s unofficial junkyard. Keith remembers it as one of the few places his dad and Shiro’s grandpa forbid them from going to because of its proximity to the train tracks and the too many people salvaging through the junk to sell off scrap metal for meth. 

It’s empty now this early in the morning. Shiro seems to know his way around, weaving through the piles of scrap metal and broken washing machines towards a little shed near the tracks. Keith follows him, unsure where they’re going. Inside the little shed is a dingy-looking space carved out from the truly revolting junk. It’s a little alcove with a frankly disgusting-looking futon and some folding chairs. The walls are made of plywood and cardboard. There’s a heart with “A + S” in it drawn in sharpie on a slab of cardboard. There’s an X through it. 

“What’s all this?” 

“Pretty gross, right?” Shiro laughs. “I used to come up here with Adam and he’d absolutely hate it. He’d still go with me, though.” 

“Adam?” Keith asks. 

Shiro pauses, chewing on the inside of his cheek and then picking up an empty beer bottle. Keith watches as Shiro tosses it out of the shed. It thuds on the grass and rolls away. 

Shiro glances at Keith, assessing. “My ex.” 

“Oh,” Keith says in a quiet little voice. 

There’s an obscenely long pause in which Keith scrambles to think of something to say. Shiro keeps watching him, waiting. Keith doesn’t necessarily feel like he’s being tested, but he wants to say the right thing all the same. 

Mostly, he scrambles to think of all the things he’s missed. All the smaller moments in Shiro’s day. But the bigger moments, too. He dated someone and broke up with someone in the time Keith’s been gone. Who knows if this Adam was the first. Who knows what else Shiro’s been doing over the years— when he got his first tattoo, when he got his first job, when he learned to walk again. Too much. Keith’s missed too much. 

Weakly, Keith offers, “Sorry you broke up.” 

“I’m not,” Shiro says with a shrug. “Well. Not really. Not much anymore. It wasn’t great. Happened right before Grandpa died.” Shiro breathes out a soft, deprecating laugh. “I finally got on his nerves enough that he broke it off.” He gives Keith a wry look, calculated and distant. “He said I’m too stubborn.” 

Shiro picks up another bottle and tosses it out of the shed, too. Keith hears this one shatter across the uneven, discarded pathway outside and Shiro sighs. He exits the shed and kicks the glass off to the side, clearing it away with his boot. His shoulders are hunched. 

“Shiro?” Keith asks him, watching Shiro as he drags his foot across the grass. 

“What’s up, Keith?” Shiro sighs, not looking at him. 

Keith isn’t sure what to say. He watches the bow and flex of Shiro’s back as he kicks at the grass. He thinks about the person in front of him, all these years he’s been on his own, and wonders what he’s feeling. 

When was the last time someone hugged Shiro?

As soon as the thought occurs to him, panic jolts down Keith’s spine. Shiro turns just in time for Keith to barrel into his chest, wrapping his arms tight around Shiro. Keith half-expects Shiro to shove him off, to scoff or to dismiss the gesture. Keith squeezes tight, prepared for Shiro to stiffen in his arms.

But instead Shiro lets out a surprised breath and then hugs him back, his arms tight around Keith in turn. It’s instantaneous, and Keith’s surrounded by Shiro’s hug. 

“Oh,” Shiro whispers and says nothing more. The sound alone— breathless and shocked— breaks Keith’s heart. As Shiro squeezes him, Keith realizes how desperately he needed a hug, too. He can remember the last time he was hugged, nearly a month ago when his mom held him at the airport before sending him off to Oregon. 

Keith breathes out. He keeps waiting, he realizes, for some sort of proof that Shiro hates him. But that was never who Shiro was. 

Shiro’s arms are so tight, so sure, curled around Keith— like he can’t believe that Keith is here, too. 

“What did you want to show me?” Keith mumbles into Shiro’s chest, unwilling to let go. 

“Seems stupid now,” Shiro laughs and his voice rumbles in his chest. Keith can feel it against his cheek. Shiro’s voice is so deep. “I figured we could line up bottles and, I dunno, throw rocks at them to practice your time powers. Like, if I threw wide you could rewind and correct my stance. I hadn’t thought it the whole way through yet.” 

Keith nods, accepting that. He thinks, really, it wasn’t so much the bottles and rocks— it was Shiro wanting to show this place to Keith. Maybe he’s looking too much into it, but, still, he holds it precious in his hands. Just another little snippet of the life Shiro’s living now. That even now, Shiro would let him back in, even after Keith’s years of silence, is enough for Keith. 

He doesn’t want to stop hugging Shiro. He never wants to let go. He wants to stay, like this, for as long as he possibly can. Shiro doesn’t seem eager to let him go, either, cradling Keith in his arms. So Keith stays. 

But, after a while, Shiro shifts, his arms dropping down his back, and they draw back from one another. Keith looks up at Shiro and finds Shiro already looking at him.

“Let’s take a walk,” Shiro says, tugging Keith out of the shed. He leads the way through the junkyard and, together, they start wandering away and down the train tracks. 

Shiro hops up onto one track and Keith mimics him, balancing himself on the other. They walk parallel to each other, arms stretched out so they can balance. 

It’s a silent walk for a time, just the two of them and the distant sounds of nature. The birds chirp as they dart through the air and the wind whispers through the trees. It’s hushed, this far away from the town. 

Keith turns his head to look at Shiro and nearly slips. Shiro’s grip is immediate, capturing Keith’s outstretched hand and keeping him upright on the track. 

“Careful,” he warns and doesn’t let go. “Last thing you need is a twisted ankle.” 

“Yeah,” Keith says, wondering.

“Although I guess you could reverse it, huh?” Shiro asks rhetorically. Still, he doesn’t let go of Keith’s hand. “Well. Better safe than sorry.” 

Keith doesn’t protest. They walk side by side and Shiro cups Keith’s hand with his. It’s a gentle touch but sure, and Keith has no fear of falling. Shiro holds him and keeps them both balanced as they walk. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Shiro,” Keith says as they walk, eyes down at his feet to make sure he doesn’t overbalance again. Shiro’s grip on his hand is a centering weight. 

“About your powers?” 

Keith shakes his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he can feel Shiro’s eyes on him. “My visions— that storm. It’s coming. Shouldn’t I figure out a way to stop it?” 

Shiro hums and then squeezes his hand. It nearly jolts Keith enough to tumble off the tracks all on his own. 

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Shiro says. “I’m here to help.” 

“Really?” 

“Of course,” Shiro answers. “I’ve been thinking about what you can do. If that vision’s true... Maybe we should tell people what you’ve seen?” 

Keith snorts. “Right. Because everyone’s going to believe me when I poke my head into city hall and be like, ‘Hey everyone, I have time powers and I saw the town getting ripped apart by a water tornado, better evacuate!’” 

“Waterspout,” Shiro corrects.

“Shiro.” 

“Anyway, I guess that’s a good point,” Shiro hums, thoughtfully. “There has to be something we can do. We’ll look into it.” 

He says it so confidently, without hesitation. It makes Keith’s heart ping in his chest, to think that Shiro just accepts it, is willing to lend his help despite it all. In this moment, walking on the tracks with Shiro, holding his hand, it feels like no time has passed at all. That they’ve always been here, together. Keith wonders how many times he’s going to feel like that. 

The vision swims into Keith’s view again. He’s on the tracks one moment and the next, he’s back at the lighthouse, watching the town get torn to shreds, the swell of a tsunami sweeping in to follow the waterspout’s destruction. He’s too far away to hear the screaming, but he knows there aren’t any survivors. 

When Keith comes to again, he’s back on the tracks and in Shiro’s arms. Keith sucks in a sharp breath and comes to coughing. He feels like he’s drowning. He feels that phantom weight of water in his lungs. He wipes his nose and isn’t surprised to see the blood. 

Shiro’s hands are so gentle on him, holding him close, wiping his hair away from his face.

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs, eyes wide and terrified. He digs in his pocket and pulls out a tissue, dabbing Keith’s nose for him. 

They’ve walked far enough from the junkyard that they’re at the cross-junction for the train, one path leading eventually to Altea Bay’s depot and the other heading north towards Newport. Keith tries to focus on the physicality of it— they’re here. They’re here. Not the lighthouse. 

Keith heaves in a deep breath and tips forward, pressing his face into Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro shifts beside him, adjusting and leaning back against the rail, his arms tight around Keith and rubbing his back.

“Another vision?” 

“The same vision,” Keith corrects and slumps into Shiro’s body. “I have to stop it. It’ll destroy the whole town. A lot of people will get hurt.”

“Okay,” Shiro says quietly. “We have time. You said it isn’t coming until Friday, right? We have time.” 

“Barely any time.”

“We have time,” Shiro murmurs, and his voice is so deep, so honeyed. It’s undeniably soothing. Keith makes a little sound, a pathetic murmur, and just lets himself be held in Shiro’s arms. Shiro’s voice hints a smile when he says, again, “We have time. You have powers, remember? All the time in the world.” 

“My powers might not last,” Keith answers, thinking of the nosebleeds. He has no idea where these powers have come from— or for how long they’ll stay. Or even what they might be doing to him.

Shiro squeezes him tight. “It’s okay. _You’ll_ last.”

“We’ll last,” Keith insists and Shiro doesn’t protest, just tugging him in tighter. 

There’s a train whistle beyond the line of trees, a warning to wildlife and Altea Bay. Shiro and Keith sigh and pull away from each other. Keith stands and hops off the tracks, dusting his hands over his knees to clear away the gravel stuck there.

When he turns back towards Shiro, he hasn’t moved, bent over himself. 

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks as the train blows its whistle again, closer this time. 

“I’m stuck,” Shiro says, strangely calm. “The tracks switched. My foot’s stuck.” 

Sure enough, when Keith looks, it’s with a rising panic as he realizes Shiro’s boot is pinched between the curve of two tracks. He watches Shiro tug, trying to get free, but unable to. It looks painful and Keith can see that, despite the calm in Shiro’s voice, he’s trembling. 

Keith kneels and tries yanking him out by his boot, hand clasped around his ankle. The boot doesn’t budge. 

The train’s horn is a steady tattoo in the air, loud and ever-closer. 

“Keith,” Shiro hisses, voice hitching in a swelling dread. 

Keith swallows. He holds out his hand and coaxes time backwards. It slips over his fingers, oily-sheened and slow-molasses. The world warps and ripples around him, like it’s slowly spiraling around his hand. He feels his nose start to bleed. 

He tries to coax time back as far as he can, watching apparitions of himself yank on Shiro’s boot, watching a shadow of Shiro tug on his foot, too. His head lurches and he feels like he’s going to throw up. Time snaps back into place and he gasps, leaning forward and bracing himself on his hands to keep from dry-heaving. 

“I’m stuck,” Shiro tells him, strangely calm. “The tracks switched. My foot’s stuck.” 

Keith holds out a shaky hand and tries to coax time back further. It won’t move. Blood drips out of his nose. His head pulses with a painful migraine, the world over-bright, all sounds too loud. _The train’s horn is far too loud._

He whips his head around, but the train’s not in sight yet. That won’t last long. Shiro’s still trying to tug his boot free. There’s a small waystation for the tracks, a service station for the track’s switch. It’s their only chance. 

“It’s going to be okay, Shiro,” Keith says. He’s nearly drowned out by the train’s whistle. 

“ _Keith!_ ” Shiro cries out when Keith lurches away from him, scrambling up the hill towards the waystation. Keith yanks on the locked door, growing more frantic as the train’s whistle grows louder and Shiro keeps calling for him. 

Keith picks up a rock and throws it hard into the door’s window. The glass splinters off the frame and Keith shoves his hand inside, grabbing at the door handle from the inside. As he tumbles into the station, he looks around and, blindly, grabs the crowbar propped up against the control desk.

“Keith!” Shiro shouts, the train only yards away from him. 

Keith nearly stumbles down the hill, blind panic seizing him. The train’s brakes are screeching in its effort to slow down and not hit the person on the tracks, its horn blaring loud enough to deafen. But Shiro can’t move, trying to wrench himself free as the train hurtles towards him. 

He won’t make it. Shiro’s going to get hit—

“Stop!” Keith shouts, eyes on Shiro. 

Keith stretches his hand out and demands time to bend around him. It does, but barely, glossing over his fingertips and twisting tight around his heart. He watches the train reverse, pulling away from where a frantic, desperate Shiro is trying to get himself free. Keith grips the crowbar tight, refusing to let it rush backwards in time, tethering it to his unyielding body through white-knuckles alone. 

Keith feels himself move through the shallow current of time, hurrying to Shiro’s side, digging the crowbar into the track, and pushing his entire weight onto it.

As time condenses around him once more, the train is just coming around the corner, still far too close to Shiro and Keith. Shiro’s trying to jerk his foot free and unable to. Keith throws his body against the crowbar and the track budges, just a little. It’s enough. 

Shiro gets his foot free, grabs Keith, and falls off the tracks. Moments later, the train blares past them, the conductor leaning on the horn as it thunders north towards Newport. 

Keith’s panting, flat on his back with Shiro pressing down against him, trembling all over and clinging to him. His face is pressed into Keith’s neck and Keith can only feel pure elation and relief, feeling Shiro breathing against him. 

“You saved me,” Shiro whispers into his neck, voice cracking. 

“Always,” Keith promises. It’s the second time in so many days that he’s done it and he’ll do it as many times as it takes, he thinks. Forever. If his powers are for anything, it’s to protect the people that matter. His head thrums with a migraine. 

If his powers are for anything, Keith thinks, it’s to protect Shiro. 

Above them, the mid-morning sky goes dark. Keith thinks at first that it’s because of swelling clouds in an otherwise clear sky but, as he tilts his head up, he sees that the sun’s blocked out by the moon. Keith’s seen a total solar eclipse before— but it takes hours, a slow mounting— it isn’t immediate like this. 

The world is awash in that eerie dim that comes with being in the path of totality. It’s a strange half-light, not quite morning and not dusk, either. Not day and not night. Shadows but half-formed, light blanched out. The world becomes a dream. The birds quiet in the trees. 

Shiro heaves a breath and looks up, shock written plain on his face. 

He would trust Shiro to know this, but Keith has to ask, anyway: “There wasn’t supposed to be a solar eclipse today, was there?”

“No… No,” Shiro confirms. “This— This shouldn’t be possible.” 

Pressed together like this, Keith can feel the thundering of Shiro’s heart, adrenaline and fear and wonder painted on his face. Keith grips his arms and waits until Shiro wrenches his eyes from the eclipse and looks down at Keith instead. 

Keith doesn’t know what Shiro might see in his eyes but he refuses to drag his gaze away. 

“The storm that’s coming… your powers…” Shiro says, brow furrowing. “They have to be connected, Keith.” 

Keith nods. “I— I think you’re right. That’s why we have to do something.” 

 

-

 

Keith skips class for the rest of the day to scour the library with Shiro, digging up as much as they can about time travel, unexplained events, and storm preparedness. There isn’t much they can do about getting rid of the storm, unless there’s a way for Keith’s powers to dilute it somehow, so Shiro suggests the best approach is to make sure the town is prepared. 

The problem with Altea Bay is the problem with most cities and towns in the Pacific Northwest— despite frequent earthquakes, the infrastructure isn’t designed to withstand it. The town is rife with _Tsunami Hazard Zone_ signs and the uplands have signs denoting it as an evacuation route, but Keith can’t recall the last time there was any sort of concerted effort to practice tsunami drills or earthquake drills. One look at the buildings around town proves that any earthquake or tsunami is going to level them. A waterspout will rip everything off its foundations. Keith can’t find any evidence of a tornado in or near Altea Bay before. 

Keith knows that running down the streets shouting that a storm is coming isn’t going to do much good, either. The random snow yesterday, which made headlines nationally, was dismissed quickly as another sign of climate change. Keith’s pretty sure the unexpected eclipse will make headline news, too. If Keith starts yelling at everyone about a storm, he’s sure he’ll be dismissed as an end-of-times fanatic. 

The weather forecast boasts ten straight days of sun, a rarity for the end of September— a time when autumn comes in with a vengeance, when the marine layer tends to mist over everything in the morning and clouds linger all afternoon. 

But even if the forecast says a high of 80s on Friday, Keith knows the storm is going to make landfall then. The library books and the internet aren’t any help, though, when he tries to find answers on what to do, how to prepare. 

He ends up with a worse headache than the migraine he induced turning back time. His nose bleeds twice while in the library with Shiro. 

“Go back to Black Lion and rest,” Shiro urges. “I’ll finish up here and call you later, okay? If I find anything, you’ll be the first to know.” 

“But—” Keith says.

“Go.” 

Keith can’t put to words the anxiety he feels leaving Shiro alone. He’s died nearly twice in the two days since they’ve found each other again. Keith is terrified of what will happen if he leaves Shiro alone. And now, it seems, there’s a limit to how far back in time Keith can rewind. If he learns about Shiro getting hurt hours too late, he won’t be able to turn back time and help him. 

“Go,” Shiro says again, nudging his shoulder. “You need to rest, Keith. Also, won’t your mom kill you if she finds out you’re skipping class?” 

Begrudgingly, Keith heads back to campus. He doesn’t go to class, though. Instead, he slogs his way back to his room, thinking he’ll read up on the internet about time travel and pool his resources with Shiro later.

Instead, he ends up sleeping until ten at night. It’s noteworthy not just for the length of the nap, but the fact that it was dreamless. Keith sits up with a groan, rubbing his face to clear it of sleep. His phone is chirping beside him with a new message. 

There is, indeed, a scolding voicemail from his mother— damn does Black Lion Academy work fast— and a few texts from Hunk and Lance asking where he’s been today. The last text is from Shiro:

 **From Shiro, sent at 9:47pm:** Are you awake? 🍓🐡🔨👻🤸

Keith smiles helplessly at the random assortment of emoji and dials Shiro’s number instead. 

Shiro picks up on the second ring. “Keith?” 

“What’s up?” Keith croaks and then clears his throat, voice all scratchy and unused. 

“Are you in your dorm?” Shiro asks and waits for Keith’s affirmation before prompting, “Meet me out front?” 

Puzzled, Keith agrees and hangs up the phone. It’s not the first time he’s snuck out at night. He likes showering when nobody else is and that usually means showers at three in the morning. He’s left the dorm itself in the middle of the night, only once, so he could watch the moon and try to take pictures of it despite the shitty lighting. 

He’s out front within five minutes, yawning and spotting Shiro ducked behind a tree, his hair glowing white in the moonlight. He beams when he sees Keith and hurries towards him. 

“I had an idea,” Shiro says in lieu of greeting once Keith stops in front of him. “You up for breaking into the headmaster’s office?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Let me tell you my idea,” Shiro whispers, tugging on Keith’s hand and leading him up the main steps to Black Lion. “You know how we were talking about the lack of tsunami drills? What if we broke into the headmaster’s computer and set up Friday as an evacuation drill?” 

Keith frowns as Shiro nudges the front doors open and slips inside. “Do you think that’ll be enough? It’s just the school.” 

“It’s a start, right? There isn’t a listserv for the entire town, but maybe it can get the ball moving. It’ll at least give us something until we can think of a better option. We only have a few days.” 

The logic seems sound enough. It is, at the very least, a start. 

“This is the most good Samaritan crime I’ve ever committed,” Keith mumbles, watching Shiro key in the code to the main office. 

“So you admit you’ve done crime,” Shiro teases. He gives Keith a coy look as the door unlocks and laughs at Keith’s incredulous face. “I did some deliveries for Black Lion after I got kicked out. Just an odd job. They gave the delivery boy the code to the office, and I thought… I’m surprised they didn’t change it already.” 

Keith stands guard as Shiro does his best to hack into one of the many computers in the office, both the assistants’ and the headmasters’. Nothing gives and Keith can see the frustration pinching Shiro’s handsome face. 

There’s the sound of a door slamming inside the building, interrupting their hacking attempts. Keith and Shiro swivel around to look at each other, eyes wide. 

“Oh shit!” Keith hisses and dives to click the light off, bathing them both in darkness. “We have to get out of here!” 

“But, the email—” 

“Forget it! What are we going to tell people if they catch us in here?” 

Keith grabs Shiro by the hand and pulls him out of the office. He looks around, peering and squinting into the dark. 

A flashlight blinds him, making him flinch back.

“Hey, you!” the night guard shouts.

Keith’s answer is immediate, throwing his hand out and commanding time to rewind. He heaves a deep breath and he’s back in the office with Shiro, just about to open the door. He twists around and presses his fingers to Shiro’s mouth to keep him quiet. Shiro’s mouth is soft, opening just a little in surprise at the sudden touch.

He whispers, “Just follow me and keep your head down, okay?” 

Shiro blinks at him and then nods. Keith hesitates, listening, and then drops his hand away from Shiro’s mouth. Shiro moves closer, gripping Keith’s hand and not letting it go. Keith takes a deep breath and slowly nudges the door open, peering out. The night guard’s walking down the hall, his back to them. Keith waits until he turns the corner before nudging the door open and pulling Shiro along. 

They’re silent as they prod the front door open and then absolutely book it across the lawn, not back towards the dorms but towards the gym. Keith barks a hysterical laugh, unable to control himself, and Shiro laughs with him. They sprint across the front lawn and duck into the gym, leaning back against the doors. 

Keith doesn’t know if there’s a security guard in here, too, but it doesn’t matter, he’ll just rewind time if so— he lets out a loud, pitchy laugh and collapses into Shiro’s side. Shiro laughs again, too, arm wrapping around Keith and holding him close.

He could never grow tired of Shiro’s laugh. He wants to always hear it. 

“Holy shit!” Keith gasps, breath heaving. 

“How did you know he’d be— oh,” Shiro says, as if just realizing. “You rewound, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah.” 

Shiro grins wider, boyish and bright and unbearably sweet. “Wow.” 

They stay leaning against the doors, heaving breath. They’re in the front room to the gym, the basketball courts down the hall and the pool off to the left, through the locker rooms. Keith closes his eyes and just listens to the steady pulse of Shiro’s heart, the heft of his breath as he catches his wind back. 

“So,” Shiro says after a moment. “Since we’re fugitives of Black Lion now, want to make it worse?” 

“How do you figure?” Keith asks. 

“Want to go for a swim?” Shiro teases, nudging Keith in the shoulder until they’re both standing upright again. Shiro twists around and walks backwards towards the doors, his grin teasing and daring— like he knows already that Keith is going to follow him anywhere. 

“I don’t have my suit.” 

“A tragedy,” Shiro laughs. It’s hardly a protest at all. 

Keith ambles after Shiro, watching him stop in front of the two doors.

“So,” Shiro teases, eyes sharp in the dark, holding his hands up and gesturing to each door. “Boys or girls, Keith?” 

Keith snorts and plants his hands on Shiro’s chest, backing him up towards the door to the locker room. “Only boys for me, obviously.” 

Shiro’s face is flushed, noticeable even in the dark after-hours light. “Yeah,” he says, breathless, letting Keith shove him through the door, “Obviously.” 

 

-

 

The pool is, thankfully, heated even after-hours. Keith kicks his clothes off until he’s down to his underwear and cannonballs into the water with a startled laugh. He lets himself suspend there in the water, just for a moment, before he pops back up for air again. 

Shiro’s more methodical as he changes. He isn’t quite self-conscious, Keith thinks, but careful. Keith swims around and then hitches his arms over the side of the pool, watching Shiro as he squirms out of his tight jeans without wrenching his boxer briefs down, too. His legs are still scarred from the splints and screws after the accident, both his knees snarled knots. 

“Is your arm waterproof?” Keith asks. 

“Oh yeah,” Shiro says, rolling his shoulder and tugging his shirt off over his head, exposing the long line of his scarred back, his metallic arm, and his tattoo sleeve. “It’s state of the art, after all.” 

He doesn’t wait for Keith to answer before he runs to the edge of the pool and literally dives into the deep end. He does an elegant little dip despite the lack of board and Keith watches him slink through the water, moving flawlessly and easily, like it’s as easy as breathing, just like he used to do as a kid. He was always like an otter in the water. 

When Shiro comes back up for air, his white hair’s dulled grey, falling into his eyes. He slicks it back with a grin and dogpaddles to Keith. 

“Your hair looks weird in pool light,” Keith teases. 

Shiro snorts. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to mention the hair.” 

“Why’d you dye it?” 

Shiro smiles and shakes his head. “It’s not a dye job.” 

Keith can’t even hide his surprise. “It’s not?” 

Shiro ducks down under the water, twisting around and kicking, diving down as deep as he can go so that he touches the bottom of the pool. He kicks off the bottom and rockets back up again. When he emerges, he splashes water at Keith until he ducks down under the water, too, his hair an oil spill around him. 

“It turned white from stress,” Shiro admits, once Keith resurfaces. Shiro drags his fingers through his hair, self-consciously, and shrugs. “The bangs went first and then the rest of it. It’s totally natural.” 

“Stress did that?”

“The… well. All the PT was really hard,” Shiro admits, voice quiet. “It hurt so much. I never wanted to do it, but I was terrified of never walking again. Sometimes I’d hear my grandpa crying about it at night. All that stress got to me, I guess.” 

Shiro goes quiet and Keith, silent, doesn’t know what to say. The licks of water lapping the edge of the pool punctuates the silence. 

“Shiro…” 

“I got through it,” Shiro dismisses before Keith can say anything. “I can walk again. I can sprint, too. Clearly.” His hands skim the water, treading in place. “I’m— I guess I’m okay now.” 

Keith makes a mournful sound before he can swallow it. 

Shiro’s smile is gentle but pained. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me.” 

“I know. I’m not,” Keith says, quietly, and reaches for Shiro. He plants his hands on his shoulders, treading water with him. “I’m— I’m really happy you’re here, Shiro.” 

Shiro blinks at him and then something smooths in his eyes, his expression softening. “Me too, Keith. I’m really glad you’re here.” 

Keith laughs and lets one hand drift off Shiro’s shoulder, fingertips trailing the lines of rivers inked into Shiro’s skin. He traces the patterns of the tattoo, following every unique design, each unique color. He feels the flex and pull of Shiro’s muscles, hard-earned through so many hours of work and practice. Shiro holds still, turning his arm just a little so Keith can explore it. 

“Did you do this all at once?” 

“Nah. Took a while to save up. Good tattoos are _really_ expensive,” Shiro admits. He turns his arm, studying the designs. “I could have used the money for something else, but…” 

“I like it,” Keith interrupts. “You look cool, Shiro.” He blushes. “I mean— you always looked cool, I just… yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Shiro breathes, quietly. 

Keith continues to tracing his fingers down Shiro’s arm, touching every spot of the tattoo, memorizing every intricate little design. He touches the tendons of his wrist, the delicate wings of a butterfly inked there. His fingers touch Shiro’s pulse point and hold, lingering, that small affirmation that Shiro is safe and here in front of him. 

Keith hesitates and glances up at Shiro. Shiro’s mouth is soft and he tilts his head, saying nothing but not discouraging either. 

Slowly, Keith drags his other hand down over Shiro’s right arm, touching that spot where flesh meets metal. It’s scarred to hell and back, but the transition is strangely smooth between the two textures. Keith touches Shiro’s arm, drags his fingers down until he reaches his hand. 

Daring, he twines their fingers. Shiro lets him, his mouth hinting a smile. 

“I had it dyed purple for a while, you know,” Shiro says.

“What? Your hair?” Keith squints at Shiro as he nods. “I can’t picture it.”

“It didn’t turn out the way I wanted. It wasn’t the right color.”

“Really?” Keith scoffs. “What’s the ‘right’ color?”

Shiro’s eyes hold his, unmoving. He doesn’t answer right away, just studying him. That almost smile from before becomes full-fledged, tucked up at the corners. It’s a private little smile, something meant only for Keith. He turns away and says, “It’s a secret.”

Shiro dives under the water and swims down into the depths. He does a little flip under the water, bubbles swelling all around him. When he breaks the water again, he grins at Keith. 

“Are you still afraid of sharks?” 

“Don’t even,” Keith says, eyes narrowing. 

“Dun dun…” Shiro starts singing, paddling towards Keith. 

Keith splashes him hard and kicks away. “No, don’t!” 

Shiro continues to torture him with the Jaws theme and manages to get his arms wrapped around Keith’s middle, roughhousing him until they both submerge beneath the water. Keith nearly swallows water but it’s worth it to hear Shiro laughing once they come back up for air. 

“You’re the worst,” Keith insists as Shiro grins at him. 

“No sharks in Arizona, I guess,” Shiro says, wiping the water from his eyes. 

“No ocean at all in Arizona,” Keith responds.

“What was it like there?” 

Keith glances sidelong at Shiro, watching him stroke through the water, his hair flipped up in absurd ways from the chlorine, the strange warping lights from beneath their rapids making him look almost too distant, too ethereal, like he isn’t even there at all.

Keith isn’t sure how to answer the question so simply, or how to keep it from being heavy. Most of his time in Arizona was moving around, struggling to get to know his mom. He loves her and he’s happy to know her now, but those first years were difficult. He wasn’t used to the heat in Arizona, so different from Oregon summers. He loves the desert now, feels it calling him, but it’s different from the evergreens and seaspray he knew in Altea Bay. 

He remembers driving in the car with his mom more often than not, constantly fearful that he’d lose her, too, that everything he left behind in Oregon would never come back again and everything would fall away from him. Remembers himself as a mourning thirteen-year-old, missing his father and missing his best friend, and aching for the both of them, too far away for him to reach. He remembers the strange crisp feel of air-conditioned breath in his lungs, that stark difference between too cold and too hot when he stepped outside. 

He remembers all the nightmares, every single rattling nightmare where Shiro’s bloody face appeared before him and told him that he hated him, that he never wanted to speak to him again. 

He realizes that he’s been quiet for too long, and Shiro’s stopped looking curious and more concerned. 

Keith gives a hollow laugh. “Well. You know. It was no Altea Bay.” 

“Keith,” Shiro says, and there isn’t any demand in the way he says his name, but it’s quietly anxious. 

“It was… lonely. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I had my mom, but…” Keith shakes his head. “It’s hard to make friends when you move around so much.” 

“Here I thought you’d have made a bunch of cool Tuscan friends,” Shiro says. 

“I was never good at making friends,” Keith says with a shrug. “Not worth getting to know.” 

“That isn’t true,” Shiro insists. 

Keith ducks under water to push the hair from his face, sweeping it back as he emerges again, water dripping down his cheeks. The sting of the chlorine keeps him from focusing on the sting of tears threatening the backs of his eyes. 

“Anyway,” Keith says, quietly, voice too wavery even to his own ears, “It wasn’t so bad. People think deserts are barren but they’re… they’re really beautiful. There’s a lot of open space. It’s— lonely.” 

Shiro’s silent, treading water beside him. Keith swims to the edge of the pool and folds his arms over the side, letting his body bob and float behind him. It’s a struggle to meet Shiro’s eyes. 

He feels Shiro swim up beside him, mimicking his pose and draping his arms over the edge of the pool, water dripping off him in little rivulets and pooling on the concrete. When Keith dares to stop glancing and look at Shiro properly, Shiro’s watching him, his cheek cushioned on his bicep, light reflecting off his metallic arm and smattering strange patterns across his face. Keith wishes he had his camera. 

“I’m glad you came back, Keith,” Shiro says quietly. “I’m glad you’re here.” 

Keith swallows thickly before he answers, “I’m really glad, too.” 

Shiro’s mouth curves into a soft smile, something gentle and private, and Keith thinks he could get lost in his eyes forever after this and never get tired of it. He doesn’t know just how long they stay like that, looking at each other, but time seems to freeze. Maybe it does. Maybe time is twisted around Keith’s fingers and he hasn’t realized it, too caught in the way Shiro’s looking at him. 

It’s a beat too long, an almost something, a moment when Keith thinks something could change, and then Shiro sighs and heaves himself out of the pool. 

“Come on,” he says, helping Keith climb out, too. “We should get out of here before the security guards start making their rounds.” 

Keith tries very hard not to look at Shiro standing there in only his very tight underwear, water running down his chest and thighs. He could catalog every scar, every piece of him that makes him so devastatingly, completely handsome in Keith’s eyes. But instead he just stoops down and pulls on his pants, careful not to stare too long at the lines of Shiro’s body. 

Keith’s tugging on his shirt when they hear a door slam on the other side of the building. They look at each other in alarm. 

“You shouldn’t have said anything!” Keith hisses. “You jinxed us.” 

Shiro grins and yanks on Keith’s hand, ducking into the boy’s locker room with him. “Good thing my best friend has super powers and can get us out of here, huh?” 

Keith’s heart absolutely does not leap at Shiro calling him his best friend. Instead, he elbows Shiro in the gut just to hear Shiro let out a little wheeze. The boy’s locker room door opens just as Shiro and Keith duck out of sight behind a row of lockers. 

“Is anyone there?” the security guard calls, his flashlight cutting through the darkness, dancing on the ceiling and skittering across the floor. He’s getting closer, his steps hitting the floor in calculated footfalls. 

It takes three tries of Keith coaxing time backwards before he manages to get him and Shiro out of the locker room without being spotted by the guard. Time moves faster through his fingers now, more purposefully. He’s grateful that his nose doesn’t bleed this time, especially when he sees Shiro’s impressed face when Keith correctly “guesses” the direction the security guard turns each time. 

They race out of the gym, Shiro letting out a whooping, overly loud laugh, hand curled tight around Keith’s as they run towards Shiro’s truck. The tires shriek as Shiro guns it out of the parking lot just in time for the security guard to come running down the stairs after them. They’re too far away for him to catch what they look like, much less Shiro’s license plate number, and the two of them laugh the entire way down the hill leading into town. 

“Like I said before, we’re fugitives now,” Shiro teases, overly dramatic and youthful, the streetlights bouncing off his silver hair. “You can crash at my place until the morning, okay?” 

“Let’s go,” Keith says, rolling down the window so the night wind can whip through their hair. He feels alive. He feels free.


	3. After Image

Keith wakes up the morning after their grand escape smelling like chlorine and cuddled up at Shiro’s side. 

They’re in Shiro’s room, light streaming in through his half-closed curtains. Shiro smells like chlorine, too, his hair all stuck up on his side, his tank-top riding up his stomach, his arm wedged under Keith. Keith has a crick in his neck from sleeping on Shiro’s arm at a funny angle.

It’s quiet and strangely peaceful. For a moment, Keith can just forget that he’s a boy with time powers, that there’s a storm coming to destroy their town in a few days, and they have nothing to show for it. For just a moment, Keith can pretend that it’s always been this way— waking up in bed beside Shiro, the morning light making everything look so soft and warm, just like when they were kids. 

Keith knows the view from Shiro’s bedroom better than the view from his childhood bedroom. He knows the way the old maple tree outside Shiro’s window taps against the window in a windstorm, the way the sun rises and hits Shiro’s face every day at nine in the morning if he stays in bed long enough. 

Keith’s arm is draped over Shiro’s stomach. Keith looks at Shiro, just watching the rise and fall of Shiro’s chest as he breathes, slow and methodical. Looking at Shiro’s sleeping face, Keith never would have guessed they broke into a school’s pool and then ran away laughing like idiots. 

It was worth it, though, if only to hear Shiro’s laugh. 

Keith turns his head, watching Shiro’s face, slack with sleep. He looks so much younger like that, expression smoothed out, lips parted as he breathes. 

Instinctively, Keith curls away from Shiro, rolling onto his side and reaching for his backpack, digging until he gets his hand on his camera. He wants to take a picture. He wants to capture this moment. 

He sits up but when he turns back, Shiro’s cracking one eye open and peering up at him. 

“Damn,” Keith says, camera in his hands. “You always were a light sleeper.” 

Shiro snorts and turns his face, pressing it down into the pillow until Keith can only see the tops of his ears. He’s still for a beat and then reaches out blindly, grabs Keith by his shirt, and yanks him down. Keith barks out his surprise but goes down willingly, sprawling out next to him. 

Shiro cuddles closer to him and presses his cheek up against Keith’s. “There,” he says, voice rusted with disuse, eyes sleepy but warm as he looks at the camera. “Now take the picture.” 

“I’m not much of a selfie person,” Keith hedges but lifts the camera anyway, angling it as best he can without any display to guide him, making sure they’re both in the frame. 

“I want a picture of you,” Shiro says and then Keith feels Shiro smile, their cheeks pressed together. Keith blushes and presses the button down. The flash brightens their eyes, momentarily blinding before the morning returns in sunspots. 

Keith lowers the camera and rolls onto his back, staying near Shiro. They both lie there as they wait for the picture to develop.

“Shouldn’t you shake it?” Shiro asks. 

“That’s actually really bad for the film,” Keith sniffs. “Better to just let it sit.” 

“So patient,” Shiro murmurs, closing his eyes again, lounging. He tucks one arm behind his head, stretched out on his bed. He looks perfectly at ease. 

Keith snorts fondly, watching the picture slowly unfurl its picture, just so he doesn’t have to look at Shiro when he says, “Patience yields focus.” 

Shiro turns his head, bumping his chin against Keith’s shoulder. “You remember that?” 

“Hard to forget that one time a ten-year-old gets all philosophical on you,” Keith murmurs, but he’s smiling. He remembers that day, down at the park with Shiro. He’d been trying to take pictures of squirrels, but they kept running away whenever he tried. 

_Just be still,_ Shiro suggested back then. _Let them come to you._

“Hard to picture you as a kid now,” Shiro mumbles, smiling back at Keith and breaking him from his thoughts. 

Keith isn’t sure what to make of Shiro’s tone. He laughs, flushes pink, and jokes, “Oh yeah? I feel like I’m just a gangly-limbed version of kid me.” 

“No way,” Shiro whispers but doesn’t elaborate. 

The picture comes into focus and Keith tips it to show to Shiro. The picture is off-center, but the light is good: everything looks milky soft and dream-like, befitting an early morning. Shiro looks content, pressed up against Keith. His eyes are bright, his smile genuine. He still looks sleepy, his hair disheveled and his tank top dipping low and exposing the sharp lines of his collarbones. In the picture, Keith’s blushing and looks similarly messy-haired. It’s strange to see himself— he so rarely takes pictures of himself— but he thinks he looks happy, too.

It’s a moment in time but one that Keith wishes could last. 

“Okay,” Shiro sighs, sitting up and stretching enough that his back gives a little pop. “We should shower and get food if you want to get back to school in time for your classes.” 

Keith sits up, too, scratching his hair. His body does feel itchy all over from pool water. “Shiro… what are we going to do about the storm? Screw school.” 

Shiro laughs dismissively and shakes his head. He stands, stretching his arms over his head and shaking out stiff muscles. It takes a few tries before the fingers on his prosthetic arm curl properly. 

Shiro says to him, “School’s important, Keith. Your art’s important. Think about your future.” 

“You went to Black Lion and then stopped,” Keith argues. “I can skip a couple days.” 

“I got kicked out,” Shiro reminds him, swinging his arms back down again. “That’s different.” 

Keith frowns, biting down at his lower lip and watching Shiro kick dirty clothes across the floor and scoop them up into a hamper. 

“Shiro… why _did_ you get kicked out?” Keith asks. Shiro always loved school, Keith remembers that much. He was always brilliant and dedicated and hardworking. He can’t picture Shiro as anything but brilliant, can’t picture the reason he’d drop out of school and devote himself to odd-jobs, instead. 

Keith almost regrets asking when it means the smile slips away from Shiro’s face. He’s quiet, wandering around his room and cleaning it up— which is mostly him just pushing things under his bed, admittedly. Giving himself something to do, Keith thinks. He isn’t looking at Keith. 

“It happened after Grandpa died. I just… stopped going to class. I couldn’t afford to go there anyway, not with all the funeral and medical expenses. So, I just waited for them to kick me out themselves,” Shiro says, shrugging. It’s forced nonchalance, Keith notes, watching the tension climb up Shiro’s body. 

“You were— you could have gotten a scholarship,” Keith says, thinking out loud. He managed to get one and he was never as good as Shiro, after all, he thinks. If a mediocre student like him could get a scholarship, surely someone as brilliant and amazing as Shiro could, too. 

Shiro shakes his head. “Maybe. But I didn’t see the point. I couldn’t…” he trails off, quietly, face slackening as he’s arrested by some thought. “I… didn’t see any point to it.” 

He’s still, standing in the center of the room, for only half a second before he remembers himself again. He shrugs, again the perfect picture of nonchalance, even as Keith sees the flicker of something in his eyes. 

“Anyway. Too late now. You don’t need a fancy boarding school degree to fish.” He picks up a stray sock and lobs it into the hamper. “It was a waste of money for me, anyway. If I’d have been smarter about it, I could have just gone to any old high school and let Grandpa save that money for himself. Maybe then he’d—” 

Shiro cuts himself off abruptly, something fragile splintering apart on his face. Keith’s mouth is already open to protest, to push past what Shiro isn’t saying.

“Anyway,” Shiro says again, quietly, before Keith can say anything. “Grandpa was always looking out for me, you know? He spent all this money on my medical bills and he just… neglected himself. He wanted me to be happy. Even if I wasn’t w…” 

“Shiro—” 

Shiro looks up at him. But as he sees Keith’s expression, finds something in his eyes, Keith watches Shiro lock the unexpressed thought away, something smoothing out on his face. He looks away again. 

“It’s fine,” Shiro says, his smile brittle as he looks out the window. “Want to shower first?” 

Keith hears the dismissal. He wants to push back against it, but he’s struck by how ill-prepared he is to talk about any of this. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what it is that Shiro wants or needs to hear. 

“Shiro,” Keith attempts.

“Keith,” Shiro answers, not looking at him. “Please.” 

With a sigh, Keith stands and exits the bedroom, everything inside him protesting the move. He ducks into the bathroom, fishing out a clean towel. He takes the world’s fastest shower, resigning himself to using Shiro’s soap to clean the chlorine off. 

It helps to wash away the sleepiness, too. He feels more awake once he exits and returns to the bedroom. Shiro turns to greet him, his smile good-natured once again, whatever he’d let surface buried back down again.

A moment later he seems to register that Keith’s returned only in a towel. His eyes widen a little in shock, gaze darting first to Keith’s chest and then to the clothes tucked under his arm. 

“Um,” Shiro says. 

“Everything’s a total chlorine bomb,” Keith explains, flushing. “Think there’s enough time to run a wash?” 

“Forget that,” Shiro dismisses, waving a hand towards the closet, his ears turning pink. “Just take some of my clothes. It’s fine.” 

“Your clothes are going to be way too big,” Keith argues, but goes to the closet anyway, sliding it open and peeking inside. 

“Here,” Shiro says, coming up behind him. One hand lands on Keith’s back as Shiro leans forward, fishing around through the clothes. “I have a few things in here that don’t fit me anymore.” 

Keith barely hears the words, so focused on the feeling of Shiro’s hand pressed so casually against the bare line of his back. He gulps down a breath as Shiro turns and drops a shirt and some pants in his arms. 

“Try those,” Shiro says, turning away.

Keith stares at Shiro for a moment before recognizing that Shiro’s just pointedly staring out the window and not looking at him. Blushing more, Keith drops his towel and quickly pulls on Shiro’s clothes. They’re a little loose on him, but not as much as Keith expected. 

He turns to face Shiro, holding his arms out as he poses. “Ta da, what do you think?” 

Shiro glances over his shoulder and, seeing Keith clothed, turns towards him fully, laughing. His cheeks are pink in the morning sunlight. “Should I wolf-whistle?” 

“I expect nothing less,” Keith teases, feeling his cheeks heat up further. 

Much to Keith’s embarrassment, Shiro does indeed wolf-whistle, dramatically sticking his fingers in his mouth and everything. It’s a loud, crisp sound that makes Keith’s stomach squirm. When he’s finished, Shiro grins at him, waggling his eyebrows to punctuate the ridiculousness. 

Keith throws a pillow at him. It’s barely a lob, though, and Shiro easily ducks out of the way before it hits him. 

“I could rewind and make sure the pillow’s going in the right direction to hit you anyway,” Keith threatens. 

Shiro barks a laugh and it sounds genuine. Keith’s grateful to hear it again. 

“I didn’t even consider something like that,” Shiro admits. “You could rewind time and make sure you win the lottery or always say the right thing to people. You could do whatever you want and then rewind and— poof, it’s like it never happened.” 

Keith wrinkles his nose. “Right. Think of all the petty crime I could commit. I could become a total sociopath and always say the right things so every person I meet likes me.” 

Shiro laughs again, dropping down onto his bed and flopping backwards, tucking a hand under his head to prop himself up to look at him. 

Neutrally, he says, “You could.” 

“How do you know I haven’t already?” Keith asks. 

“Instinct,” Shiro says. He shrugs. “You’re unflinching. Everybody used to say you were a troublemaker, but you were just honest. You say what you mean and mean what you say.” 

“As a kid, maybe,” Keith says. “Maybe I’ve changed now.” 

Shiro shakes his head, studying him with such an intensity that Keith’s unsure what to do. “You’re still Keith. You haven’t changed that much.” 

Keith feels his chest flood with warmth, assured by the words far more than he’s willing to say or admit, even in his own head. “So what you’re saying is that I’m too honest to people-please?” 

“You’re methodical,” Shiro corrects. “You never do something just for the sake of doing it. You always have a reason.” 

Keith considers that, hands on his hips. “I can be impulsive. I used to get into all those fights as a kid, remember?” 

“Sure,” Shiro agrees. “But you always had a reason for it. You didn’t punch people because you had ‘anger issues’ or whatever the school counselors said.” His eyes are too honest as he looks at Keith. “You always have your reasons. It’s why photography suits you.”

“How do you figure?” Keith asks, curious. 

“It lets you observe. But you can still do your loner thing.” Shiro turns, plucking up the picture of them on the bed and holding it up for Keith to see. “When was the last time you let yourself get photographed instead of just taking the picture?” 

Keith’s quiet, processing the words. Maybe it isn’t so surprising that Shiro would know all this about him, even now. He’s never heard himself described in such a way before, by Shiro or by anybody. He feels, quite suddenly, overly exposed.

“You think things through, and you observe things, and once you do make a choice, you’re passionate about it.” Shiro shrugs again, flipping the picture to stare down at their faces, his expression thoughtful. “That’s ‘Keith.’” 

“Huh.” 

Shiro sits up as he peers at Keith. “We all have our impulsive moments. But when it’s something that matters, that really matters to you? You take your time.” His mouth quirks a little with an almost-smile. “Maybe that’s why your powers are time manipulation, huh?” 

Keith laughs, shaking his head, embarrassed despite himself. “You make me sound so cool, Shiro.” 

“You could stand to be a little more impulsive now, if you wanted,” Shiro says. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Sure,” Shiro says. “If it doesn’t go your way, you have a get out of jail free card, don’t you? Just rewind.” 

“I guess,” Keith hedges. “It feels dishonest, kind of. Or irresponsible.” 

“It might be the best way for you to grow and understand your powers,” Shiro suggests. “It doesn’t mean you have to be irresponsible. Just… let yourself take risks, if you want. Do what feels right.” 

“I guess. I don’t know where I’d start,” Keith admits. 

“Hmm…” Shiro considers for a moment and then something glints in his eye. He tilts his head, smiling at Keith. “I dare you to kiss me.” 

“I— what?” Keith squeaks.

“I dare you to kiss me.” 

Keith’s heart stutters to a stop in his chest. He can tell by the way Shiro’s looking at him that he doesn’t think Keith will do it. His smile is teasing, sweet but not unkind. He lifts his eyebrows, looking at Keith calmly. 

In his chest, Keith’s heart gives a pathetic thud as he steps forward and kneels down on Shiro’s bed. Shiro watches him, assessing. Gulping down a breath, Keith cups Shiro’s face and guides him up. 

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, and manages only that before Keith’s leaning in and kissing him. 

He feels Shiro’s surprise. It should be a quick, nothing kiss but Keith lingers longer than he knows he should, his mouth slanted over Shiro’s. There’s barely any pressure behind the press of their closed mouths and Keith thinks his lips are probably too chapped. He kisses Shiro, though, and lets himself take that risk. Calculated risk, perhaps, but risk all the same. 

And then he feels Shiro kiss him back— just the barest pressure as Shiro shifts closer. Shiro lets out a little breath, a quiet sigh, and lean into Keith’s space. 

Keith pulls away first. Shiro takes a beat too long to blink his eyes open, meeting Keith’s eyes with no small trace of surprise there. There’s a moment of silence between them, that space between them yawning wide— that moment when Keith might fall over the edge of a cliff and never come back again. Time around him itches to draw him back into its fold, to protect him against a heartbreak. 

Instead of withdrawing from him, though, Shiro just stays— not pulling back but not pressing closer. He hovers, just on the edge of it. There’s a buzz in the air— something. _Something._

“Don’t rewind,” Shiro whispers, voice hushed and mouth so damn kissable. Keith watches him lick his lips, his breath quiet and short. 

“I wouldn’t,” Keith answers, immediate, and doesn’t care how breathless he sounds in turn. “Not with you. Never with you.” 

As he says it, he knows it’s true. Keith doesn’t want to undo mistakes with Shiro. It feels too much like lying to him. Shiro, then, gets to see all the worst parts of Keith— all his mistakes, all his errors, all his fears. He can trust Shiro with them, Keith thinks. 

He can always trust Shiro. 

“Keith, I… I really…”

They stare at each other. All Keith wants to do is kiss him again. 

“Yeah?” 

“I should, um… take a shower,” Shiro whispers, pulls away, and flees the room. 

 

-

 

Shiro makes them breakfast while Keith packs his things into his backpack. He picks up the discarded selfie, waffling for a moment, before he pockets it and heads downstairs. 

Breakfast is nothing fancy, just stove top oatmeal, but Keith’s stomach is rumbling with hunger anyway, so even something as bland and tasteless as oatmeal feels welcome. 

He sits at the kitchen table, watching Shiro at the stove top. It feels almost nostalgic, melancholy in a way, to be back in Shiro’s home with so much time that’s passed. He remembers when the two of them used to run around the backyard, remembers standing in this very kitchen making dinner with Shiro and his grandfather. 

His hand strays to his pocket and he draws out the selfie from earlier, he and Shiro pressed cheek to cheek in his bed. 

“You said you wanted this?” Keith asks when Shiro turns and drops a bowl of oatmeal down in front of him. He offers the picture to Shiro. 

“Oh!” Shiro sits down across from him, taking the picture and looking at it, eyes softening. “Yeah. Hold on, I have a photo album.”

“A photo album? Like… an actual one?” Keith asks as Shiro rises again and ducks into the family room, pulling a huge photo album from the shelf. “I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those.” 

Shiro laughs. “Grandpa was sentimental.” 

He sets the photo album down, almost reverently, and flips it open. It’s pages and pages of Shiro growing up— his baby photos, his toddler years. The later pictures have so many of Keith there with him, the two of them running in and out of the frame, smiles around braces and bandaids and floppy hair. There’s a wide gap, though, of Shiro as a child to Shiro as a teenager, fully healed. No pictures from the accident and recovery. 

Shiro tucks the selfie from this morning into the first empty sleeve, next to a picture of Shiro holding his Black Lion acceptance letter, beaming at the camera— at his grandfather behind the lens. 

“Wow,” Keith murmurs, flipping through the pages and pages of pictures. 

“Grandpa wasn’t a photographer like you,” Shiro says, voice fond and faraway, “but he loved taking them.” 

“Yeah,” Keith murmurs, his heart dropping when he flips a page and lands on a picture tucked into the sleeve— Shiro and Keith, standing in the kitchen, arms around each other. The last photo they ever took together before Keith moved away. The last photo they took together before the accident. 

It’s strange, how visceral his reaction is, seeing the picture. His body runs hot and then cold. Goosebumps rise on his arms. 

Keith stares at it for far too long. His body feels far too cold. The smile on Shiro’s face is one he hasn’t seen in a long time. He can’t recall seeing Shiro as happy and carefree as he does in that photo. 

Seeing his best friend, so young and so happy, feels like too much. It makes the years that have passed all the clearer, that stark difference between the lanky, smiling boy in the picture and the young man sitting in front of him now. 

Shiro untucks the photo from the sleeve, jarring Keith from his daze. He blinks in surprise when Shiro offers the photo to him.

“Here,” Shiro says. 

“It’s yours, though,” Keith argues. “Don’t you want it?” 

Shiro’s smile is brittle, not quite reaching his eyes. “You don’t have any pictures of us as kids, right? So take one.” 

Keith pulls the picture from Shiro’s fingertips and it feels like it’s burning him up. He shouldn’t want this picture. He shouldn’t take this picture. He swallows thickly and ducks his head, fiddling with the edges of the picture. 

Their conversation from earlier plucks at the back of his mind. How quickly Shiro was to dismiss himself when talking about his grandpa. The little boy in the picture smiles up at him, unaware of what’s about to happen so soon after this photo’s flash. 

“Shiro—”

“It’s okay, Keith. Just leave it,” Shiro murmurs, taking a bite of his oatmeal and not looking at him. 

Keith thinks of what Shiro said that morning, the way he’s holding himself now, how different he looks from the silly, carefree child he once was. _If it wasn’t for me—_ Shiro’d said. 

He thinks of all of Shiro’s smiles from this week— how, somehow, there was one little edge to it, like he was always waiting for something to end. Like he was looking at Keith and already saying goodbye. 

Keith grips the picture and looks up at Shiro. He feels like he’s been punched in the gut and he isn’t sure how to bridge the words— how to say what he has to say to Shiro. 

“You don’t… seriously blame yourself for what happened to your grandpa, do you?” Keith asks. 

He isn’t sure if it’s the right way to say it. But it’s out in the open now and Keith isn’t going to rewind. Shiro lets out a long sigh, his entire body seeming to curl in around him as he deflates. His hand trembles, just a little, around the spoon he’s holding. 

Shiro doesn’t answer, but that’s answer enough. 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, heartbroken. “It isn’t your fault. Nothing— none of it is your fault.” 

Shiro shrugs and eats his oatmeal. 

But it’s important, it’s so important that Keith makes him understand. He leans forward, insistent. “Shiro—” 

“Keith,” Shiro interrupts, not looking at him. “Please. Just… drop it.” 

“I can’t,” Keith insists. “Shiro— you have to tell me. You don’t actually think that, do you?” 

He watches Shiro flinch, watches him struggle to put his spoon into his bowl. Keith reaches out, touching his wrist and stilling him. Shiro holds himself perfectly still, expression wavering for only a moment— and that’s enough, too, damning in that quiet way. Shiro doesn’t have to say it for Keith to know it’s what he’s thinking. 

“Shiro.” 

“Keith, please, it’s—”

“Tell me,” Keith insists. “Shiro, tell me—” 

“Fine!” Shiro cries out, flinching away. He wrenches his hand away from Keith and seems to immediately regret the action. He cradles his wrist in his other hand, holding it close to his chest. Like if he were able to curl up, he wouldn’t have to face these words. “Fine,” he says again, quieter. “Yes, okay? I do. It’s my fault.” 

“Shiro—” 

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gotten into that school, if I hadn’t gotten into the accident, then grandpa might still be alive now.” 

“The accident wasn’t your fault, either!” 

Shiro’s face twists into something unpleasant. Keith watches him withdraw further into himself, crossing his arms and gripping his biceps tight. His prosthetic’s inner workings give a little whirl at the sudden, intense grip. 

Shiro still refuses to look at Keith. 

“If it weren’t for me,” Shiro says, quieter and deadly calm, “you wouldn’t be alone. I should never have told you to stop calling me. But I… It was my fault.” 

“Shiro,” Keith protests but isn’t sure what to say. 

“If it weren’t for me,” Shiro continues, staring at the far wall, where his grandpa’s shrine is set up, “my grandpa might still be alive.” 

Keith shakes his head, wordlessly, wanting to reach out and touch Shiro but unsure how to do it. It’s wrong. It’s _wrong_. It’s not Shiro’s fault. 

“Your dad would still be alive if not for me, too,” Shiro says, quietly. “The accident—” 

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault! It was an _accident_!” Keith insists. His heart thunders in his chest, chills rushing over him in waves. “Shiro— _Shiro_. Do you blame yourself for my dad?” 

Shiro is silent and Keith feels his heart splintering in his chest. He’s bleeding from the inside out. 

“Oh, Shiro,” Keith whispers and doesn’t know what to say. 

Suddenly the aftermath of the accident makes sense— all that silence from Shiro, whenever Keith started crying. The phone calls waning in number in those first few weeks. Shiro finally telling Keith to stop calling him. 

At the time, Keith thought Shiro was angry with him, in those first days after the accident. Keith couldn’t think for grief, couldn’t stop crying over his dad’s death. He remembers Shiro always looking at him, eyes wide and heartbroken, until, finally, he stopped looking at all. 

In all the years Keith feared that everyone would leave him, Keith never once considered that Shiro might, meanwhile, think he deserved to be without Keith, that he might deserve to be alone completely. 

“I never wanted you to feel this way,” Keith whispers. “I never _once_ blamed you, Shiro. You’ve never— it’s never been your fault.” 

Shiro says nothing. 

“Shiro—” Keith begins, reaching for him. 

His fingertips glance over Shiro’s metal wrist, seeking his hand. 

But Shiro stands abruptly, turning away. “I’ll drive you to school.” 

“But—”

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, quiet and heartbroken. “ _Please._ I can’t talk about this right now. Please… please don’t cry.” 

And Keith snaps his mouth shut against all the words that want to tumble out, how desperately and fully he wants to convince him otherwise. He wants to cry, he knows, but not for the reason Shiro thinks. He isn’t crying for anyone but Shiro. 

But Shiro won’t meet his eyes and the drive back to Black Lion is silent and awkward. 

 

\- 

 

Later that night, Keith sits in his dorm room, bed unmade and still wearing Shiro’s clothes. He stares at the photo in his hand— the last photo of their childhood, he thinks, the two of them grinning at the camera, their arms wrapped around each other, pressed cheek to cheek. 

Shiro blames himself. The thought keeps repeating in his mind, a never-ending record-spin. This entire time, Shiro’s been blaming himself. 

If he could do something to take that pain away—

Keith doesn’t know how long he stares at the photo in his hand. All he knows is that one moment he is staring at the picture and the next, the photo seems to jerk in his hand. It twists and warps, like overexposure— all red streaks of lines and fuzzy edges. 

_Come on, Keith,_ he hears a young voice call out, children’s laughter, the scrape of chairs on the floor. Keith blinks, rubbing at his eyes. _Keith, Keith, Keith,_ the voice keeps calling, overlapping with other voices, all of them jumbling together— a cacophony in his ears, crying out inside him. 

It sounds like there’s a flood of people in his room, everyone calling out to him. It’s inside his room and inside his head. 

The photo twists in his hand, as if opening up to him. 

Keith feels that lurching feeling he always feels when he manipulates time. Time rushes forward and then slips backward over him, like so much water, like so much sand. He feels the world warp and converge on him. He feels the distinct sense that he’s falling, tipping forward right into the out-of-focus photo, trying to right it again. 

He’s falling. 

 

-

 

Keith startles back into focus when a flash blinds his eyes. 

He blinks away the spots and, with a shock, watches Shiro’s grandfather lower the camera, pluck the polaroid from its spit-out, and shake it gently through the air. 

And Keith can’t stop staring at him. 

Shiro’s grandfather, alive and standing in front of him. He recognizes the crows feet, the bristly white hair, the reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. It’s Shiro’s grandpa, alive and well. 

Shiro’s grandfather looks up and notes Keith staring blatantly at him. He smiles, that sweet smile that always used to remind Keith of Shiro’s smile. 

“Forgive me, little one,” he says, as he always used to call Keith, “I hope the flash wasn’t too bright.” 

Shiro laughs beside him and nudges him, and when Keith turns his head, it’s Shiro— young and grinning, all black hair and too-short and nose unscarred. 

“Keith,” he says, voice squeaky and sweet, “You look like you’re lost in space!” 

Keith looks around, trying to take in his surroundings, to process what’s happened. He looks down at his hands and finds them to be too small, too young. He touches his face, his hair. Shiro laughs, thinking he’s doing a bit, and trots over to his grandfather to look at the developing photo.

“Ta da!” Shiro announces, showing the photo to Keith with a flourish— it’s the two of them, that same photo, young and happy. The same one Keith was staring at in his dorm room, the same one Shiro gave him, the same one that sat in Shiro’s grandfather’s photo album for years. 

And somehow, he’s here again. 

Somehow, Keith’s managed to go back in time far enough to return to the day of the accident. And he’s aware of it, in his younger self’s body but present in his mind. Keith remembers that sensation of falling forward into the photo. A portal, perhaps, or a massive spike in his time abilities.

Keith feels like he’s going to be sick.

This time when Shiro looks at him, his expression pinches with concern. “Whoa,” he says, gently, touching Keith’s shoulders with both his hands, so small and slight against Keith’s shoulders. “Are you okay? You’re all pale.” 

“I’m fine,” Keith rasps out, his voice squeakier and tinier than he remembers. “I’m just—” 

He lurches forward and yanks Shiro into a hug, holding him tight. Shiro laughs and hugs him back, pressing his face into Keith’s shoulder. 

“You’re so weird,” he says affectionately. 

Keith keeps squeezing him, afraid to let go. Afraid of what might happen if he lets go. 

He hears the sliding glass door to the backyard open and then close, hears familiar heavy footsteps he thought he’d never hear again, and when he opens his eyes and peeks up from Shiro’s shoulder, his dad’s wide frame fills the doorway.

Everything stills for Keith. 

“I finished breaking down the tree for you, Ken—” his dad starts to say, and it’s that same deep, rich voice Keith still remembers in startling, painful clarity. 

Keith’s scrambling across the kitchen, his heart in his throat, before he even realizes he’s let go of Shiro. 

“Dad!” 

He slams into his dad, burying his face in his chest, his little arms curled tight around him. His dad’s exactly like he remembers— tall, wide-shouldered. Smells exactly like he remembers, that cologne that Keith still has a bottle of stashed away but is too afraid to ever use for fear of losing it. It’s _him_. Alive. Here. 

“Hey, little man,” his dad says, patting him on the back. When Keith doesn’t let go, his dad squeezes him tight, lifting him off the ground. “Doing okay down there?” 

Keith squeezes his eyes shut. He remembers that, too. All the times his dad teased him about his height, always affectionate, never cruel. Keith’s eyes sting with tears, thinking about how he’d probably still be too short next to his dad, even now, if his dad were still alive to see him today. 

His heart cracks in his chest, split open and shattered to pieces. 

“I stacked all the logs at the side of the house like you asked,” his dad tells Shiro’s grandpa, balancing Keith tight in his arms, still hugging him. Keith clings to him like a limpet, his arms tight around his dad’s neck. He refuses to let go. “You’ll need a new tarp, though. The rats got into yours.” 

Keith remembers this, remembers this like it’s playing on a horrible loop in his head. Of course he remembers this day with painful, startling detail. 

Keith’s dad offers to go to the hardware store later to get a new tarp. Keith and Shiro seize the opportunity to beg for ice cream from the parlor next to the hardware store. His dad, always too kind, agrees out of eagerness to do something for his son and son’s best friend. 

Shiro goes with his dad but Keith doesn’t. Keith claims it’s to keep Shiro’s grandpa company but the real reason, the painful reason trapped inside of Keith’s chest, is he was lazy. It wasn’t to keep an old man company for twenty-minutes, it was so Keith could sprawl out on Shiro’s bed and watch an episode of Pokémon until they returned. 

It’s the last thing he ever says to his dad, _I’ll stay here and keep Grandpa Ken company._

And his father never comes home. Shiro’s little body gets broken, crunched too close together in the car accident that follows. Nothing is ever the same again after this. 

It feels so stupid now. Everything is so stupid, so pointless, just an endless crunch of chaos theory. Because of one stupid, stupid decision, he lost his dad forever and hurt Shiro. It was never Shiro’s fault. It was only ever Keith’s fault. 

His body trembles with grief. What is the _point_ of bringing him back here and making him relive this day? The guilt saturates through him, has choked him for six long years. He doesn’t need to relive this to know every detail. He doesn’t need to see this to know, now, what it means for Shiro, too. 

He hears the conversation playing out around them. Keith’s dad sets him down, dismisses Shiro’s grandfather’s attempt to get him money for the tarp, Shiro tries to convince Keith to go with him. 

Keith isn’t listening. His entire body has gone numb. 

_Do what feels right,_ Shiro told him this morning (this morning, years in the future). The thought blooms in his mind and refuses to wild. 

Do what feels right. 

The conversation flows around them. Keith holds tight to his dad’s shirt. The thought occurs to him and once it starts, he can’t turn it away.

No. He doesn’t have to live through the accident. He’s fallen back in time, sure, but he has his mind and memories. He knows what’s going to happen. 

He can stop it now.

“No!” Keith shouts, interrupting the conversation, and the other three turn to look at him. Keith feels himself trembling, eyes wide. “T- the hardware store’s closing soon, anyway. We could just make cookies here. All four of us, together! Dad, you love cookies!” 

Keith’s dad laughs. “You’re really worried about Ken being all by himself, huh, little man?” 

“You love ice cream, Keith,” Shiro says, blinking at him.

“I want cookies!” Keith declares, petulant. He even stomps his foot, desperate to get it to work. He grabs Shiro’s hand and squeezes. “Ice cream makes you sick, anyway. It’s— it’s not worth it, Shiro.” 

Shiro wrinkles his nose, embarrassed to be reminded of his lactose intolerance. 

Desperately, Keith scrambles to his dad, digging through his front pocket where he knows he keeps his keys, and yanks it out. 

“Keith—” his dad starts but Keith’s already running away, opening the sliding door and chucking them out into the yard. “ _Keith,_ ” his dad says, firmer now, “What are you—” 

Keith shoves his hands out, begging time to rewind. It does, slipping through his fingertips. His dad reverses until he’s standing with Shiro and his grandpa. It takes far too much effort for Keith to walk through the shallows of time, to make time condense around this past, but still make it back to his original position. 

“You love ice cream, Keith,” Shiro says. 

“I want cookies!” Keith declares. He squints up at his dad. “Y- you’ve worked hard all afternoon, Dad! You’re tired! You shouldn’t have to drive just yet!” 

“Well,” his dad begins, and then sighs, feeling around his front pockets. “I don’t know where my keys are right now, so we might need to settle for cookies.” 

Shiro’s grandfather laughs, affectionately, and shakes his head. “We do have everything we need for cookies, I suppose.” 

“Well,” Keith’s dad says, laughing, too. “I can’t say no to cookies. Little man’s right.” 

“O- okay!” Keith crows, elated, his entire body soaring. He’s done it. _He’s done it._ “Cookies! We’re making cookies! We’re all staying here and making cookies!” 

“You’re so weird,” Shiro says warmly, and Keith doesn’t even care. He grabs at Shiro and his dad and pulls them both into his arms, giving the world’s most awkward hug— trying to keep Shiro close while also getting his arm around his dad’s massive frame. 

His dad is alive. His dad is safe. 

_Shiro_ is safe. He doesn’t have to feel any pain now. He doesn’t have to suffer. He doesn’t ever have to be alone again. 

“It’s okay now,” Keith whispers, his heart lifting. “It’s okay.” 

And the world bleeds away from around him, the voices fading.


	4. Storm

When Keith’s next aware of himself, he opens his eyes to his childhood bedroom. He recognizes the crack in the ceiling, the view from his window, the scratched-up hardwood floors. 

Keith sucks in a sharp, alarmed breath and touches his face. He scrambles out of his bed and rushes to the mirror on his closet door, almost terrified of what he’ll see. But it’s a mundane reflection that meets him: his usual face, his usual age. He’s back to normal, it seems. 

But that doesn’t explain why he’s in his childhood bedroom— a house sold after his father’s death and then demolished to build a new apartment building in downtown Altea Bay. The house no longer exists but he can’t deny this is his childhood home, down to the little details like the outlet in the corner with a cracked covering, the squeaky floorboards, the particular tint of the light as it passes through the big leaf maple in the backyard and into his window. 

“What the fuck?” Keith asks, with deep feeling. 

Downstairs, he hears movement and voices. He sucks in a breath, something cold coiling in his gut. It’s with equal parts hope and fear that he stumbles his way down the stairs, unsure who’s about to meet him—

His mother and father are in the kitchen. 

Keith stops dead in the doorway, just observing the startling mundanity of the picture they paint: his mother dressed for the day, his father still wearing baggy plaid pajamas. His dad’s cooking bacon at the stove and his mom’s at the kitchen counter, reading something on her phone. 

They don’t look up when Keith skids into the room. It’s not noteworthy then, Keith realizes— this is a reality, a future, a _present_ where Keith coming down the stairs to breakfast is _normal_. 

Keith blinks at them, trying to make sense of it— the timing’s wrong. He’s never actually seen his parents together in the same room. He met his mother after the funeral, after all. He has no memories, no point of reference, to know how his parents interacted, what they might look like on a random morning, making breakfast together and waiting for their son to come down the stairs.

They’re _here._ And Keith is here with them. His heart leaps and soars away as soon as he thinks it. They’re here. He saved his dad. 

He changed the past.

Keith’s breath comes quick and, for a moment, he feels faint. He’s bowled over by the sheer strength of his time powers. He was able to do this. 

“Dad,” he gasps, coming into the kitchen. “Mom.” 

They both look up and smile at him. “I knew the bacon would summon him,” his mom says, warmly. “Good morning, Keith.” 

“How are you feeling?” Keith’s dad asks, abandoning the spatula shimmering with bacon grease to Krolia so he can approach Keith. Keith expects his dad to ruffle his hair, like he did when he was a kid, but he doesn’t. 

He comes up to his dad’s shoulder now, Keith realizes. His heart thrums in his chest. Still short. 

“I’m feeling fine,” Keith says and it’s an understatement. He feels like he’s about to burst from relief.

“We know today’s always difficult for you,” his mom says gently, turning the burner on the bacon down so she can go to him, too. Keith startles when his mom draws him into a hug. The hug itself isn’t surprising— his mom hugs him all the time— but the force of it arrests him. 

Keith closes his eyes and just luxuriates in the feeling of it— his mother holding him, standing here in the kitchen with his father. The three of them, here. Together. Alive. 

“Today?” Keith asks, glancing at the calendar on the wall next to the landline, following the crossed-out dates to the first open square. The date means nothing to him— no birthdays, no anniversaries, not the day of the storm. It’s just any other Saturday. 

His parents exchange a look. Some sort of anxiety twists in Keith's gut, unsure how to read that look. He has no idea if it’s a significant look or not— he’s never seen his parents interact before. He has no idea if it’s just them looking at each other or if they’re communicating something. He doesn’t know if he’s, somehow, said the wrong thing and now this illusion is about to shatter. 

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks. 

His dad’s mouth thins, thoughtfully, and this time he does ruffle his hair. It’s nostalgic and Keith’s hands lifting to try to tame his hair again is an automatic gesture, muscle memory from a childhood long gone. 

“I know it’s your tradition,” his mom says, still strangely gentle, “But you should stay off the beach today. There’re five beached whales.” 

“ _Five_?” Keith asks. “That’s— so many.” 

Beached whales aren’t unheard of, but they don’t usually wash up on the bay’s beach and certainly not so many at once. 

His mom nods. “Rangers are keeping people off. Even when they’re dead, whales are protected wildlife, but people keep trying to climb them.” 

“Lookie-loos from out of town are coming in to gawk, too. Last thing we need is another dynamited whale incident,” his dad agrees. His expression gentles when he looks at Keith. “Sorry, little man. I’m sure Shiro won’t blame you for missing this year.” 

“Shiro?” Keith asks. 

He almost smiles, thinking of Shiro. A thrill climbs his spine and refuses to dislodge. If he saved his dad, then he saved Shiro, too. Shiro won’t be injured anymore; Shiro won’t be hurt. Shiro won’t be alone. The thought warms him more than seeing his parents in his childhood home does. 

_Shiro._

He needs to go see him. As soon as the urge strikes him, he knows nothing else will matter to him. Not until he can see Shiro’s face. He ducks out of his mom’s arms and grins at both of his parents. 

“I’m going to go see Shiro,” Keith announces, exiting the kitchen and trotting towards the front door.

“Keith,” his mom begins, but Keith isn’t listening, toeing on his shoes, shrugging into a jacket hanging on the hook, and turning back towards them both, waving. 

“I’ll be back later!” he calls. 

“Keith,” his mom says again, but Keith’s already hopping down the front steps and jogging down the driveway towards the street. 

It’s a strange, happy feeling— leaving his house and knowing his parents will be there when he gets back. He didn’t realize all the weight he’d been carrying until he saw his dad’s face again. Instead of car crashes now, Keith’s dad just needs to worry about eating too much bacon. 

Keith’s phone rings in his pocket once he’s half a block away from home. He draws it out and glances at it. When he sees it’s his mom calling, he silences it. He has all the time in the world now to catch up with them both, with his _dad_ , but first he needs to find Shiro.

Their houses were always so close together. It’s only a five-minute jog to Shiro’s house and Keith knows the path well, his feet pounding on the pavement. 

It’s just the same as Keith expected it to be. The paint’s still peeling and there’s still Grandpa Ken’s familiar rock garden rather than lawn. Shiro’s truck isn’t in the driveway, but Keith jumps up the steps leading to the front stoop and rings the bell anyway, bouncing on his toes. 

Shiro’s grandfather opens the door and Keith feels that same thrill— he saved him, too, he’s alive, he’s here— and grins. “Hey, Mister Shirogane.” 

“Keith!” Shiro’s grandpa says, blinking. His face splits into a warm smile— Shiro’s smile— a moment later. “My, how long has it been since I last saw you?”

“Too long,” Keith agrees, his heart all twisted up. It’s strange, to hear his voice again. Growing up, he’d always loved Shiro’s grandfather; Keith only ever had his dad and Grandpa Ken felt so much like having his own grandpa. He’d always regretted not seeing him again. 

“I’m… so happy to see you, little one,” Shiro’s grandpa says, voice wheezy and wisping. “Or, not so little anymore.” 

Keith laughs. “Dad’s still taller than me.” 

“Ah,” Shiro’s grandpa answers, a non-answer but acknowledging. 

He’s still smiling as he steps back, makes room for Keith to enter the house. Keith steps inside, slips off his shoes, and tucks them up next to the other pairs. 

As Keith lines his shoes up, Shiro’s grandpa says, again, “It’s so good to see you. Today especially. It’s been… so long.” 

“Yeah,” Keith says and means it. “I’m glad to see you, too. Is Shiro here?”

Grandpa Ken is still smiling but something twinges at the corners of it. Keith steps further down the hallway, his socks shuffling through the old carpet. 

“Ah, of course. My boy’s just in the other room,” Shiro’s grandpa says, turning to lead Keith down the hallway. “He’ll be happy to see you, too, I’m sure. I heard about the beach quarantine. I’m sorry your tradition’s been cut short this year.”

“That’s alright,” Keith says. He has no idea what this tradition is, anyway, so it’s fine. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“I know Takashi must love it,” Grandpa Ken insists. “You always picked the nicest flowers for the waves.” 

Shiro’s grandfather moves slower now and Keith steps forward, offering his arm. The action awards him a faint smile and a frail arm looping through with his. Keith guides them down the hallway and towards the family room. 

“Yeah,” Keith answers absently, looking around for Shiro. He half-expects him to be chopping wood in the backyard for his grandpa, or eating breakfast at the table, or sprawled out on the couch to laze away the mid-morning. 

His hair would be black, still. He’d have both his arms. Keith wonders if he’d have tattoos in this version of their present. He wonders if he’d still be just as muscular, if he still harvests mussels and fishes for salmon. 

Keith cranes his neck around and that’s when he sees the shrine. 

He almost glances right over it. He’s so used to it, a staple of the Shirogane household. For as long as Keith’s known Shiro, the shrine’s had his parents’ pictures on prominent display. Back in that other present, Grandpa Ken’s photo sat on the still surface.

Shiro’s photo sits at the center of the shrine now. 

The incense is still burning, coiling a snake of smoke through the air. The air feels thick with it. Shiro’s grandfather has already set out an offering. 

Keith’s blood runs cold, staring at the photo. The world zeroes in and focuses on that one little detail: Shiro’s black hair is combed properly and his smile is gentle in the picture, eyes so soft. He’s wearing a suit and holding an acceptance letter to Black Lion. There’s no scar across his nose, no metal arm. He looks like a boy, happy and free of guilt. 

But he’s dead. 

The realization hits Keith so hard he feels it bodily. He’s only half-aware of letting go of Grandpa Ken’s arm and wandering towards the shrine. He’s only half-aware when he falls to his knees in front of the shrine. Once there, in front of Shiro, he feels his entire body freeze over. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. 

Shiro’s grandfather lowers down beside him, hands resting on his knees. He sits in silence with Keith for a moment, both of them staring at Shiro’s picture. Keith feels like his heart’s been ripped from his chest, a festering wound bleeding out in the Shirogane family room.

Quietly, Shiro’s grandpa offers, “I still can’t believe it’s been four years since we lost him.” 

Keith hears nothing else. His entire body demands to know what happened, but he knows he can’t ask it. He stares at Shiro’s photo. His sweet smile beams back at Keith. Gone. _Gone._

He stares at the photo. He wonders if he stares long enough, he might be able to fall into this photo, too. But the photo stays still. Shiro keeps smiling at him, frozen in that time Keith can’t get to. 

“I have to go!” Keith shouts, struggling to his feet and stumbling back. Shiro smiles after him. 

Shiro's grandfather turns. “You only just arrived, Keith. It—”

“I’m sorry,” Keith gasps, eyes stinging with tears. “I have to go. _I have to go!_ ” 

He isn’t proud of the fact that he runs out of the house, slamming the door behind him. He isn’t proud of the fact that he’s left Shiro’s grandpa in his wake, confused and startled by his hasty exit. 

He nearly trips down the steps, trying to run and tie his shoes at the same time. He doesn’t know what he’s running to, but he knows he needs to run. He’s sprinting down the sidewalk. He’s blind to everything and anyone, everything rushing by him in the blur. The world doesn’t matter. Nothing around him matters. 

By the time he has to stop running, his lungs are burning, and his vision is spotting out. He bends over himself, hands planted on his knees as he pants, gulping down air, his eyes stinging with tears. The air smells like the sea, drying out seaweed and decaying whales. 

When he lifts his head, he’s at the beach. It’s been roped off to keep people off the shore and away from the whales, five of them in an almost perfect line on the beach, crows and seagulls already pecking at the softer flesh. There’re people around the whales despite the taped off access, posing for selfies and trying to climb up on the creatures. 

He hears people cry out when a wave crests in and, with it, brings a sixth whale. It rolls across the sand before stilling on the tideline, unmoving. 

Keith takes a step back. His body protests the movement, but he turns away from the whales and sprints down the beach. It’s hard to run in sand and it kicks up into his shoes. But it doesn’t matter; his parents and Grandpa Ken both mentioned the beach. 

It’s a stupid, childish part of his brain that makes him think he’ll find Shiro here. But everything inside him screams for him to go searching. He stumbles through the sand, following the curve of the bay, searching for any hint of Shiro. 

Eventually, Keith’s body gives out. He trips into the sand when his calf knots up and he sits there, panting, ducked over himself. The sun beats down against the back of his neck and his hands smart from pushing all his weight onto his wrists when he fell. 

He’s reached the end of the beach. In front of him are the familiar cliffs that rise. The lighthouse blinks its light up above. With effort, Keith hobbles his way off the beach and to the stone steps leading up to the street above. There aren’t any whales down this way and so Keith’s completely alone as he grips the handrail and hoists himself up onto pavement again. 

He’s at Dead Man’s Curve, the last sharp twist of the road before it forks, heading towards the lighthouse or heading towards Black Lion. It wasn’t always called this, Keith knows, but is the nickname it’s earned due to the too-sharp curve, the slicks of ice that form during the winter, the dangerously close spot where road almost becomes cliff into the bay. 

And that’s when Keith sees it: the shiny new guardrail and the sign just before it. 

_Guardrail donated by Kentarou Shirogane, in loving memory of Takashi Shirogane._

It hits Keith in flashes, painful and precise: Shiro’s first car after getting his license, the dark winter’s night with too much fog and not enough light, the black ice. The police report said he likely swerved to avoid hitting something and ended up driving off the edge instead, brakes slicking over the ice. He didn’t suffer, the autopsy determined, and Keith doesn’t remember if that statement was platitude or truth. 

Keith stands at the edge of the road, staring down at the frothy bay below, water pounding against the steep cliff face. 

The reality doesn’t settle for him. It floats, like so many sun spots, little dust motes caught in a breeze. He feels the heat of the sun, the crisp edge of the sea breeze. He hears the distant murmurs of humans on the beach climbing dead whales. He hears the seagulls crying. He hears the occasional car slip by on the road. 

He is aware of his body, standing in this reality, but it doesn’t feel real at all. He isn’t sure if his heart is even beating. He isn’t sure if he’s even breathing at all. 

“No,” he manages to whisper but there’s no one around to hear him. 

He sways at that edge, staring down at the water. 

“No,” he says again. 

He’s shaking, he notes, but it’s a distant realization. He curls into himself, his heart pounding so fast that it threatens to break, threatens to splinter apart and poison everything inside him. 

“Shiro,” he gasps. “No, Shiro…” 

But Shiro isn’t there to hear him anymore. Shiro hasn’t been here in a long time. 

It feels wrong, that it should be such a sunny, warm day when something has been robbed from him. He’s shaking apart like he’s freezing to death. His parents are at home. Shiro’s grandpa is at home. 

But there’s no Shiro. 

“Shiro,” Keith begs. “Shiro…!” 

He’s screaming down at the water, but nothing responds. He shouts Shiro’s name and it ricochets off the cliff’]\\\s, skids across the water, but lands on no one’s ears. There’s a distant cry of a cormorant just before it dives into the water, but nothing else. Nothing. No one. No Shiro. 

Keith doesn’t know if he’s crying or if the sea spray’s hitting his face. His eyes sting with salt in either case. 

His parents are here. His dad is alive. The world is sunny and bright and there are birds chirping. And it’s _wrong_. It’s all wrong. 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, and feels like a ghost calling out to another ghost. 

Keith doesn’t know how long he stands there at Dead Man’s Curve. The world continues on around him, but Keith’s world begins and ends at this one section of beach. A car driving down the street pauses at the curve. Keith thinks someone calls out to him. 

He startles when someone touches his shoulder and he whips around, half-expecting, half-hoping— but it’s his father. 

“Hey, little man,” his dad says, unbearably gentle, and it’s too much to see his face. He knows what it cost, to be here with his father now. 

Keith clenches his eyes shut and feels the tears slide down his face. 

“I— I don’t—” Keith begins, voice hiccupping. 

“It’s alright,” his dad tells him, but it isn’t alright. It will never be alright again. 

His dad guides him back towards the car and helps him get into the passenger’s seat. Keith’s body feels numb as they drive away from the slice of road that stole Shiro’s life. But, no, that isn’t fair to say. It wasn’t the road, it wasn’t chance, that made Shiro die.

It was Keith. 

Keith doesn’t know if it’s some trick of fate or circumstance, but when he shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches into himself, he feels the glossy slide of a picture against his fingertips. Shaking, he draws the photo out. It’s the one Shiro gave him— the two of them in the kitchen, young and carefree and just before the accident. 

Nothing. Nothing in the world was worth Shiro’s pain. 

He sits, for just a moment, and doubts. The picture ripples, just like it did before Keith fell into the past. He thinks he hears voices. He thinks he hears Shiro’s voice, calling out for him again. _Keith—_

He doesn’t look at his dad again, focusing on the picture. It swims and unfocuses around his vision. 

The world bleeds away from him.

 

-

 

Keith opens his eyes now and knows what he’ll see: he’s back in Shiro’s home, the four of them— Keith, Shiro, Grandpa Ken, and Keith’s dad— in the kitchen. He’s back again, some sort of restart button. 

It’s clear to him what he needs to do— what he needs to let happen. 

Numb, Keith watches his father return from the yard, smelling like freshly chopped cedar and mown grass. He hears Shiro request ice cream. He remembers to pipe up to ask for ice cream, too. He begs off from going with his dad and Shiro, insisting that he needs to keep Grandpa Ken company. 

It moves, like clockwork, like the world was meant to move. It’s torture, to play through all this again, knowing he has the opportunity to change things but unable to do so. He can’t exist in a future where there is no Shiro. 

He needs to turn away as his dad pulls out his keys from his pocket, swirling them around his finger, and Shiro runs upstairs to get a sweater at his grandfather’s insistence. His little feet thunder up the stairs and back down again. 

“We’ll be back soon,” his dad calls from the front door. 

The room is thick with the smell of incense, the picture of Shiro’s parents smiling blandly up at Keith. Keith clenches his eyes shut, his hands fisting at his sides. 

“Dad!” he cries, turning from the shrine and running to the front of the house. “Shiro!” 

They both turn towards him. Shiro perks up, beaming and hopeful and so, so young. “Are you coming with us?” 

Keith shakes his head, his throat dry. “I just— I love you. I really love you. Don’t forget that, okay?” 

Both his dad and Shiro look at him in surprise. Keith watches a wide smile bloom over Shiro’s face, his cheeks burning bright red. 

“I— I love you, too, Keith,” Shiro says, hushed, like it’s a secret he’s been holding in. His grin is toothy and sweet and full of braces. 

Helplessly, Keith steps towards him but Shiro’s already moving to him, folding his arms around Keith and hugging him tight. Keith looks helplessly up at his dad, who watches them both in bemusement. Keith closes his eyes and sinks into Shiro’s embrace, hugging him back with all the force he can manage. 

“You don’t deserve to be alone,” Keith whispers into Shiro’s shoulder. “You don’t deserve— any of this. Anything—” 

“Hey,” Shiro interrupts, pulling from the hug to take his hands and squeeze them tight, grinning. He looks so happy. “I’m never alone, right? You’re always with me, Keith.” 

Keith can’t speak. The words lodge in his throat and all he wants to do is cry. He lets out a pathetic whimper and clings to Shiro, pressing his face against Shiro’s shoulder to hide his misery.

“I am,” he promises, voice breathless and too far away. “I’ll never leave you again, Shiro.” 

When he thinks he has control of himself again, he looks up at his dad. He steps back from Shiro. 

His dad ruffles his hair, fondly and sweetly. “We’ll be back soon, little man. Be good.” 

Keith can only nod. He stands at the threshold and watches them go, his dad’s long strides down the steps and Shiro’s hops after him. Keith refuses to look away. He refuses to blink. He refuses to call them back in again, no matter how much his heart screams for him to do so. 

He memorizes them in this moment: happy and alive. 

Keith watches them go into the sunshine, his dad reversing his car, taking them both further and further away from Keith. 

Keith stands there in the doorway even once they’ve turned the corner, even once they’re gone from his sight. 

 

-

 

Keith wakes up. 

He has no idea how much time has passed or even what day it is. But he’s in Shiro’s bed, in his bedroom, with the old tree tapping its branch against the window. Outside, an otherwise sunny day whips clouds across the sky. 

For one brief, terrified moment, he worries he’s somehow messed time up again. Before falling into the picture the first time, he was in his dorm room. But now he’s in Shiro’s room. 

The thought leaves him as soon as he turns his head and sees Shiro sitting at his desk, typing something on his computer. All terror leaves him once he sees Shiro alive. 

Keith is seized with a sudden, crushing relief, watching the light catch in Shiro’s white hair, the glint of his prosthetic, the curve of his tattoos. His Shiro. 

Frenzied, he scrambles out of bed. “Shiro!”

Shiro only has time to turn his head before Keith is crashing against him, hugging him tight from behind. Shiro lets out a little _oof_ of surprise as Keith throws his entire weight against Shiro, just to feel the bulk of Shiro’s body, the hush of his breath rising and falling. 

“Wow, good morning,” Shiro says and twists around to hug him back. The angle’s awkward but his arms are around Keith and that’s all Keith needs. 

When Keith draws away from Shiro, his eyes glance out the window and fall on two moons hanging in the sky. He does a double-take, staring in surprise. 

But, somehow, the moons aren’t as important as Shiro. He turns back to look at him and finds Shiro studying his face, frowning. Helplessly, Keith cups Shiro’s face, his thumbs touching his cheeks. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Keith whispers. Shiro tilts his chin up to look at him more closely, frowning deeper. 

“Where else would I be?” Shiro asks. His hand lifts to curl around Keith’s wrist and squeezes, gently. “Read over this email for me and tell me what you think.” 

Keith drops his hands away only because Shiro turns back towards his computer, scooting his chair over to make room for Keith to read. 

“What is it?” Keith asks, peering over Shiro’s shoulder.

“It’s what you told me to do,” Shiro explains. “It’s the write-up to the news station. You’re right that even if we can’t prove anything, we need to warn people. Hopefully they’ll listen.” 

“I did?” Keith murmurs, only half-listening. He doesn’t recall telling Shiro this. 

Keith reads the words but doesn’t comprehend. He can’t think of anything aside from the feeling of being draped against Shiro’s back, arms over his shoulders, their cheeks pressed together as he tries to read. It’s painful, that tangible need to touch Shiro, to feel him breathing, to know that he’s here and alive. He lets his hands touch Shiro’s chest and rest there. He feels Shiro’s heart speed up. 

“I figure they’ll have to at least humor us since there’s, you know, two moons in the sky,” Shiro says, jerking his chin towards the window. 

“It’s good,” Keith says without having even fully read it. He’s too focused on the feel of Shiro’s rising chest against his hands. “Send it.” 

“I tried doing some research while you slept,” Shiro says. “About perfect storms and unexpected storms. There isn’t much, but I hope it’s enough to get people to listen. We can’t exactly say that the storm’s connected to your visions and sudden superpowers.” 

“Shiro,” Keith says, drawing away enough for them to meet eyes. “I’m really sorry about yesterday.” 

“Yesterday?” Shiro asks, brow crinkling. “What happened yesterday?” 

“What you said, at breakfast—” 

Shiro continues to look at him before understanding dawns on his face. “That was two days ago, Keith. And it’s fine. You have nothing to apologize for.” 

Keith frowns. “Two days?” 

“Do you not remember yesterday at all?” Shiro asks, going from curious to concerned almost immediately.

Keith shakes his head and then rubs his forehead. “I… I really can’t explain it all. It’s— time magic nonsense.” 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. His hand touches Keith, his fingers looping around his wrist easily. 

Keith knows he needs to explain it all to him— and doesn’t know how to put any of it to words. He went back in time. He jumped through a photograph. He made sure Shiro had his accident. 

His heart aches with it.

“Yeah,” Keith whispers, tracing his eyes over Shiro’s face— alive, handsome, _here._ He knows he has to tell him. “I’m okay. I just...” 

“You just?” Shiro prompts when Keith falls quiet.

Keith sucks in a deep breath and ducks his head. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’ll do, if you hate me.” 

Shiro makes a quiet sound, something mournful and hitching. He squeezes Keith’s wrist and tugs, pulling him away from the desk and back towards his bed. They both sit down, and Keith can hardly stomach to look into Shiro’s eyes, deep and concerned. 

“Keith,” Shiro says. “I could never hate you.” 

Keith hiccups, a breathless sound. “I… there’s something I have to tell you, Shiro. Something happened.” 

“Tell me,” Shiro prompts gently. 

And Keith does. He explains falling into the photo, waking up in the past. He explains trying to stop the accident— to save Shiro, to save his dad— and the aftermath that follows. The entire time, Keith can’t stand to look at Shiro. He knows Shiro must look devastated, must look betrayed, must look so angry to know what Keith’s put him through in some other version of reality, only to reverse it and set Shiro through these painful years again. 

In the wake of his story, Shiro is speechless. Keith thinks, finally, that this will be the moment when Shiro rejects him, when Shiro pulls back and is lost to him forever. That this will be the moment when Shiro simply can’t forgive him.

“ _Keith,_ ” Shiro whispers and Keith dares to glance up at him. 

Shiro yanks him forward and wraps his arms around him tight, hugging him until Keith can’t breathe. Neither of them speaks, just holding each other in the quiet murmurs of a Friday morning. 

The storm is coming, Keith knows. But for a moment, in Shiro’s arms, he can feel safe. 

“So… you can jump through photos now, huh?” Shiro asks and Keith knows it isn’t what Shiro really wants to ask. He can’t blame Shiro for not knowing how to put something into words. 

Keith shakes his head, thinking of the photo of Shiro at his grandfather’s shrine. “I think it has to be pictures I was part of in some way.” 

“Wow,” Shiro murmurs and frowns. “Keith… What you’ve done—” 

“I’m sorry,” Keith interrupts. 

Shiro makes a sound and drags him into another hug, squeezing him tight. “No, I’m… _I’m_ sorry,” he murmurs. “Keith, I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” Keith mutters but Shiro doesn’t answer, just holding him in tighter against his chest. 

 

-

 

Keith and Shiro spend the rest of the day emailing and calling anybody they can think of, trying to get a mandatory evacuation started as clouds gather at the lip of the horizon. Keith needs to rewind several times to try to say something more convincing, and every time it fails. 

“Guess I need to keep practicing the whole ‘sociopath says the right thing’, huh?” Keith asks and Shiro gives him a small smile, some amusement in their dire situation. 

By the afternoon, they’re driving around in Shiro’s truck just shouting at people to get out of town. The wind is picking up. Yelling at strangers works about just as well as they expected, which is to say not at all. He has a voicemail from his mom, undoubtedly asking why he keeps skipping classes, but school doesn’t matter when the storm is coming. Keith can feel it in the air.

It’s Friday. It’s coming. They’re running out of time. 

Halfway through screaming at the protestors who always stand outside City Hall for a handful of different reasons (today, to save the whales), Keith hears a distant crack of thunder just before he blacks out.

 

-

 

He comes back to himself with a startled scream, the sound lurching out of him. Panic seizes him and he whips his head around. He only manages to relax once he spots Shiro there beside him, safe. Shiro is soaked from head to toe, his hair plastered to his face, the wind slamming against both of them. 

“Keith! We have to keep moving!” Shiro shouts. 

“What?” Keith asks, looking around. 

He has no memory of going to the beach, and yet here they are. The air stinks of seaweed and rotting sea life. The beach is absolutely littered with dead grey whales, piles of them lining the tide line, the waves crashing against their unmoving bodies. The two moons hang heavy in the sky, clouds swarming to swallow them up. 

“Shiro—” 

“Come on, Keith,” Shiro says, gentler, taking his hands in his and trying to guide him along. “Stay with me. We’re almost there.”

“Where are we going?” Keith shouts over the roaring wind, his hair whipping in his face. 

“You told me that we had to get to the lighthouse,” Shiro answers, brow crinkling as he takes in Keith’s blank expression. “Keith— you keep forgetting things. Are you okay?” 

“I’m still— walking around and talking? Did I pass out?” 

Shiro shakes his head. “No. You just kept telling me we had to get to the lighthouse and then the storm started picking up. The tsunami sirens went off a while ago and I think they’re finally trying to start an evacuation. But— but I think trees are coming down. I’m not—” 

“We have to get to the lighthouse,” Keith interrupts. He trusts whatever force is pushing them there. He must protect Shiro and if getting to the lighthouse means that, he’ll trust it. 

It doesn’t matter if he’s blacking out. It doesn’t matter if he’s losing time. It doesn’t matter that they failed to warn anyone against the storm. 

All that matters, the only thing that’s going to ever matter now, is making sure Shiro’s safe. 

“Keith—” Shiro starts. 

“What— whatever happens, I need to keep you safe, okay?” Keith says aloud, gripping Shiro’s hand tight. If he refuses to let go, then Shiro will be okay. 

Shiro’s eyes widen. “Keith, you need to keep _yourself_ safe!”

“No,” Keith presses. “I don’t matter.” 

“ _Of course you matter_!” Shiro shouts, voice cracking. He looks devastated. 

Shiro starts dragging them across the wet sand, heading towards the swell of the cliffside, the hill leading up to the lighthouse. Shiro seems to have a singular focus and he refuses to let go of Keith’s hand. Keith stumbles after him, disoriented and vision fuzzy at the edges, a photograph that hasn’t fully developed. The world roars around him and it doesn’t matter. He grips Shiro’s hand tight. 

The lighthouse is still standing, its light flashing in the mounting gloom of the storm. It’s the only thing still with electricity, Keith realizes, looking back at the town to the sight of downed power wires. There isn’t a single light flashing. Headlights slice through the air as people drive out of town with screeching tires, but that’s it. Keith can’t hear any tsunami sirens. 

They get around Dead Man’s Curve and Keith ignores the pang in his heart, pushing against the shrieking wind. A car’s horn blares as a truck races past in its efforts to get out of town. Whoever’s driving doesn’t stop for them. 

All around them is chaos and the wind’s only getting stronger. Another whale washes up on the beach behind them. The waves are growing taller. 

“What are we going to do, Keith?” Shiro asks, eyes wide as they take in the devastation behind them. “Everyone—” 

“I don’t know!” Keith shouts, panic rising. “I don’t— god, what _could_ we have done, Shiro? We’re just stupid kids! Who would listen to us?”

Shiro wavers, his expression splintering— the guilt swelling over his face like a cresting wave. Just as quickly as the expression emerges, though, it disappears. Just like that, Keith watches as Shiro steels himself. His shoulders go rigid and his grip on Keith’s hand is almost tight enough to hurt. 

“Come on,” Shiro insists, face fierce but tone gentle. “There has to be a reason your visions always show you at the lighthouse. There has to be a reason why we need to go there. Let’s keep going, Keith.”

In the distance, the clouds drag angrily over the sky. The wind whips and wheezes around them, swirling and spiraling. It’s forming the waterspout, Keith realizes, watching the swirls of the clouds out at sea. Keith watches the waterspout forming, the curving wind touching down to sea, ripping the water up again. It looms ever-closer, so close to making landfall.

They’re so close to the lighthouse. Keith and Shiro run, but it’s a struggle of mud and wind and panic as they climb their way up the hill. They’re getting closer but the wind keeps pushing them back, as if trying to keep them away. 

“We’re almost there, Shiro!” Keith yells over the wind. 

The wind roars. A tree rips from its roots and lurches towards them, falling directly towards Shiro. Keith sees it coming and it’s automatic now for him to fling his hand out. He commands time to rewind, to push backwards. The tree lurches in the air and then swings backwards, righting itself in its foundation, the roots sinking back into the earth. 

The wind roars louder and Keith’s nose bleeds. He stumbles forward and shoves Shiro, pushing him to the ground and falling after him, landing hard on his hip. The tree crashes down in a splintering shower of bark and needles where they once stood. Where Shiro once stood. 

The wind screams around them, nearly deafening. Keith’s nose bleeds, the blood dripping down onto his shirt. 

Shiro stares at the fallen tree, the looming storm, and back at Keith. His eyes are wide, taking everything in. Keith isn’t sure what Shiro thinks in that moment, but he sees a spark of understanding flare in his eyes. His hand, for just a moment, softens in Keith’s hand— as if he’s about to try to pull away, as if he might try to separate himself from Keith.

Keith grips him tighter, refusing the action. He helps Shiro onto his feet, wiping at his nose with his shirt sleeve and ignoring the trail of red it leaves behind. Shiro’s staring again at the waterspout, eyes as grey and as distant as a storm. 

“Shiro,” Keith begs. “Please… we have to keep moving.” 

Shiro turns back towards him, something quiet in his eyes. Keith’s terrified of the look although he can’t say why— feels, if only for a moment, like he is about to lose something irreplaceable. He thinks of all those moments this week, Shiro poised on the edge of his vision, existing in some ethereal space— like he’s about to disappear. He fears it now, so viscerally it’s a bodily response. It seizes through him, terrifying and icy-hot. He grips Shiro’s hand so tight and absolutely refuses to let go. He can’t lose Shiro. 

He can’t. 

Shiro nods, though, and lets Keith lead the way. The trees groan with the force the wind pushes on their roots, but no other trees fall towards them. It’s a struggle against the wind but, eventually, they crest the hill, reaching the lighthouse. 

Keith hoped that, once there, things would be clearer. But they aren’t. The world is still screaming around them. The storm is still coming closer. The town below is in absolute panic. 

The storm whips around them. 

“Shiro?” Keith asks, still refusing to let go of Shiro’s hand. “Shiro, what’s wrong?” 

“It’s because of me, Keith,” Shiro says, staring out at the water. “The storm gets worse because of me.” 

“It’s not— _What_?” Keith shakes his head, refusing the information, the absurdity of Shiro’s statement— the devastating extent of Shiro’s guilt. “It’s not your fault, Shiro.” 

The strange calm that’s fallen over Shiro breaks and he shudders, turning his head towards Keith with eyes wide and frightened. “Every time you save me— it gets worse! Or you get visions. Or your nose bleeds. Or there’s an eclipse!” Shiro sounds hysterical, voice loud and cracking. “ _I’m making the storm worse_!” 

Keith’s eyes widen in turn, taken aback by the force of Shiro’s shouting. He shakes his head.

“It’s not your fault!” Keith shouts, insistent. “How could it possibly be your fault?” 

Shiro pulls his hands away from Keith and the storm swallows up Keith’s distressed sound at the separation. He watches Shiro stumble to the railing lining the lighthouse’s cliff. Keith’s heart lurches to see him so close to an edge. He hurries after him. Shiro’s eyes are on Altea Bay. 

“How can you think this is your fault?” Keith asks, eyes stinging. “I’m the one fucking everything up! I’m the one who saw the visions— I’m the one with powers! If the storm and my powers are connected, then it’s _my fault_ , Shiro!”

He’s panting, his heart galloping away from him. As he says the words, he realizes it’s true— that he’s afraid of this being the truth. He’s the one at fault. He’s done everything wrong. He should have worked harder to save the town. 

“W- what if there are realities where we don’t make it through this?” Keith asks, trembling, thinking of the reality he’s just returned from. “What if I could have done more?”

“Keith—” Shiro finally rips his eyes away from the town and looks at him. 

“Fuck, Shiro. What if there’s a reality where you’re dead and gone and I never got to tell you—” It hits too close to home. He thinks of Shiro’s photo, framed and immaculate, sitting on a shrine’s surface. “What if I never come back or we never become friends? What if in all those realities, there’s a storm and I still can’t do anything? What if in those realities, I’m doing this alone? Or you’re alone?”

He sucks in a sharp breath, staring at Shiro. 

“I can’t— I _can’t_ ,” Keith whispers. “I can’t blame you for this. I can’t leave you alone.” 

The hysteria’s drained from Shiro’s eyes. As quickly as it came, it’s gone. Now, Shiro looks strangely calm, looking back at Keith. His eyes are a swirling storm and if Keith’s heart weren’t breaking, he’d think him so beautiful standing in the rain. Shiro breathes and then holds out his hand to Keith, soothing and yearning, and Keith can’t resist. He lurches forward, reaching. They thread their fingers together. 

Now Keith’s the one who feels hysterical. But he knows that if he starts crying now, he’ll never stop. He’ll fill an entire ocean. 

Keith takes a deep breath and whispers, heart-breaking, “I’m the real storm, Shiro.” 

All of this is his fault. His powers have caused this. And he couldn’t even get it to stop. He couldn’t do anything to protect the town. 

“No. You’re not,” Shiro insists. He sounds so sure. 

Keith shakes his head, his misery burning his throat. They stand there, stewing in their own guilt. The storm roars around them and the town is in chaos but, for one moment, he and Shiro are just there, together, standing and silent. 

The moment passes, though. Shiro closes his eyes, as if steadying himself. He turns back towards the town. 

“Keith,” Shiro says, quietly, almost impossible to hear over the roar of the storm, just beyond the lip of the bay now. “I know how we can stop this. How we can save everyone.” 

“What?” Keith asks, startled. “How?” 

“When did this all start?” Shiro asks, but he must already know the answer because he doesn’t stop talking. “You got your first vision and then we met again and I—” His lip trembles but he pushes onward, “You watched me die, right?” 

A cold dread builds in Keith’s chest. In a quiet voice, he agrees, “Yeah. That’s when it started.” 

“If you go back to that moment and… let it happen,” Shiro whispers. “Like you did with the accident… this’ll stop. Everything will stop.” The hand Keith isn’t gripping strays to his pocket, digging. “We just have to… get you back there, right? You can do that now.” 

“No!” 

Shiro shakes his head, ignoring Keith’s panic. “If you do that, then none of this will happen.”

“No, Shiro!” Keith shouts again. 

Shiro’s voice rises, flooding over the wind. “You wouldn’t need to keep saving me! Think about it, Keith! _Why_ do you keep having to save me?” He turns away from the town and looks at Keith, eyes burning. “I was supposed to die in my accident, wasn’t I? And now the universe is trying to correct that mistake.”

“No!” Keith says again, fiercely. “I won’t let it!” 

“Things get worse every time you save me!” Shiro insists. “It’ll stop if I’m just— not part of the equation at all.” 

Stunned, Keith watches Shiro dig in his pocket and pull out a photo— the picture Keith took so long ago, that feels far too long ago now: the blue butterfly in the bathroom, sitting on the bucket’s handle. It feels like a dream still, like something that happened too long ago. 

Keith marvels at the thought that Shiro’s held onto it this entire week, for no reason beyond sentimentality. 

But a swell of dread rises in him, choking him. He can’t breathe. 

“No,” Keith says again, voice cracking. 

“Keith,” Shiro whispers. “It’s the only way.” 

“It doesn’t make sense, Shiro!” Keith shouts. “If you were meant to die— _why_ give me these powers at all? Why let me save you again and again? _Why_ , Shiro?” 

“I—”

“What’s the point of giving me powers to save you if I’m not supposed to use them?” Keith cries. 

The photo flaps in the wind, pinched between Shiro’s fingers, offered to him. It’s no gift that Keith wants. 

“Keith, please.” 

“Please what?” Keith shouts. “Please let you die? Never!” 

Shiro flinches. He looks devastated, his face twisted up in agony, his eyes swimming with tears. “Please,” Shiro says again, the photo still held out to Keith. “Please… let me be the one to save you this time, Keith.” 

Keith’s never seen him look so heartbroken, not even in the wake of the accident that stole so much from both of them. Shiro’s eyes flood with tears, threatening to spill. He looks so small in this moment, uncowering before a storm but staring down the veil of mortality. He hasn’t let go of the picture, still held out to Keith in supplication. Keith’s ticket back to the past. 

All this time yawning open between them. 

“You’ve already saved me,” Keith says, rain streaking down his face. “Everything you’ve done for me, Shiro— you have no idea how much you’ve done for me.” 

“Keith,” Shiro says helplessly. 

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith begs. “Don’t ask me to do this.” 

Shiro hiccups, clenching his eyes shut. “Fuck.” 

“If my power is for anything,” Keith says, “it’s to save you. As many times as it takes, Shiro. I’ll never stop.” 

“ _Keith,_ ” Shiro whispers, heartbroken. His hand wavers around the photo but doesn’t let go. 

“Do you remember the first day we met?” Keith asks, and knows that Shiro would never forget that, all those years ago. “Outside the principal’s office, you were the only person who asked me if I was okay. A whole parade of adults and students, thinking the worst of me… and you were the only one who even bothered to look at me. You were the only one who never left me alone.” He laughs. “You still don’t get what that meant to me, do you?” 

Shiro shakes his head, eyes clenched shut still. 

Keith steps closer to him, hand lifting to touch Shiro’s chest, just above his heart. It’s pulsing in his chest, heightened heartbeat, breathless gasps of air. 

“You were the first person to ever see the best in me. We were going to be space pirates together.” 

“And regular pirates, too,” Shiro murmurs, an old mantra between them. 

Keith feels like he’s about to start crying. “Maybe I keep saving you. But you’ve saved me just as many times. Don’t you see how important you are?” 

“ _Keith,_ ” Shiro begs. 

“Coming back to Altea Bay— I wanted to see you again,” Keith says. “All I ever wanted was to see you again, Shiro. All I want is to be with you again.” 

And maybe Shiro is right. Maybe Shiro’s the reason for the storm. Maybe they both are. Maybe, going back to the moment in the bathroom, letting Shiro get shot over a stupid, stupid accident, would mean the storm never comes. Would mean all the people here would be safe, would live another day. But Keith doesn’t know them. He doesn’t care about them, any of them. None of them matter. 

Maybe that makes him cruel, how easily he tosses them aside. How easy it is to focus on Shiro, standing here before him. If that makes him cruel, then so be it. The universe can’t have Shiro. 

Maybe it would stop the storm. Or maybe Keith would just go back in time to see Shiro die again. For nothing. Keith’s done focusing on what’s behind them. He only wants to move forward. He only wants to be by Shiro’s side. 

It’s strange, to feel such peace and clarity when standing in the middle of a storm. 

“Shiro.” 

Maybe both of them are too quick to take on the blame that isn't theirs.

Where Keith feels calm, though, Shiro must feel only desperation. Shiro blinks his eyes open with a mournful sound, staring at Keith. “All those people down there, Keith— they have lives!” he says, gesturing towards Altea Bay. “They’re alive and I’m— I should be dead so many times over. I’m not _worth_ this.”

He wrenches his hands away from Keith and covers his face, bowing into himself. He’s silent for a beat too long, shoulders hitching up, face twisted up in agony behind his hands. 

Keith’s already reaching for him, fingers curling around his wrists and coaxing his hands from his face. Their eyes meet, the rain streaking down their cheeks.

“You are worth everything,” Keith says, fierce and unhesitating. He takes the photo from Shiro’s fingers. 

“Keith—!”

Keith makes sure Shiro’s watching when he rips the photo clean in two. 

“You are _everything_ to me,” Keith says, comforted as the wind whisks the pieces of the photo away and with it any chance of losing Shiro to time. “This was never going to be a choice for me. It is always, always going to be you.” 

Shiro watches the pieces of the photo fly away in the wind— lost forever. Watches their one chance to stop the storm disappear on the wind. His eyes are wide, face crumbling in shock. 

Keith lifts his hand and touches Shiro’s cheek, guiding Shiro’s gaze back so they’re looking into each other’s eyes. 

“I love you,” Keith says, calm now. Infinitely calm. The storm rages around them, but he is the eye of the storm. “And you are everything to me. You are all that matters to me.” 

Keith reaches for Shiro with his other hand, too, cupping his face. 

“You are worth everything,” Keith tells him, makes sure Shiro’s listening. 

He hooks his fingers against Shiro’s jaw, coaxing him down. Shiro hiccups but bows to him when Keith seeks his mouth. He lets out one devastated sound and then kisses Keith like he’s drowning. 

It’s nothing like kissing in Shiro’s bedroom, breathless and expectation. This is acceptance, Keith thinks. This is Shiro opening to him and melting against him. Shiro grips him tight, as if afraid Keith will be the one to be wrenched away by time. He clings to Keith and deepens the kiss with a breathless whisper of Keith’s name. And Keith is there, swallowing each sound, each breath, pillowing his lips to Shiro’s. 

When they pull back, Shiro is breathless. Keith lingers close, pressing his forehead to Shiro’s. He keeps his eyes open even as Shiro leaves his shut, breathing against Keith’s kiss-swollen mouth. The urge to lean in and keep kissing him is there, but he quiets when Shiro starts crying, overwhelmed. Keith wipes the tears away, cupping his face. Someone so precious. Someone so infinitely precious to him. 

“All those people, Keith,” Shiro whispers. 

“I know,” Keith answers. 

“What are we going to do?” Shiro asks. He clumsily touches Keith’s face, wiping his thumb under his nose and cleaning away the last of his nose bleed.

“We’ll go to Arizona,” Keith answers. “Mom will know what to do. We’ll… we’ll figure something out.”

He doesn’t know if that’s true, but he hopes it is. He doesn’t know if the storm will follow him. He doesn’t know what will become of his time powers, what will become of him. But it doesn’t matter now. He knows what he needs to do. 

“Whatever happens… it’s us together, okay?” Keith asks. 

Shiro doesn’t protest Keith’s question, sniffling, his face crumbling up. He nods his head. 

“It’ll be okay, Shiro,” Keith murmurs and doesn’t know if it’s true. Shiro nods again, tipping closer towards him. 

Keith kisses him again and swallows Shiro’s sob. Shiro presses closer to him, cupping his face, too, and kissing him until Keith’s the one who can’t breathe. When they pull away, the world has continued without them. They watch the waterspout yank up the water and the sand and the whales on the beach and, finally, watch as it makes landfall. 

It’s almost anticlimactic, the way it sweeps up towards the town. The force of the wind rips up fence posts, power lines, rooftops. The roads fragment apart. Cars flip over and go flying. Buildings collapse. 

The waterspout rips effortlessly through house and building, tears apart roads like they’re made of paper. Everything gets torn apart in its wake and it loses no power once making landfall. It holds still, centered in Altea Bay, making sure everything is destroyed. 

It’s tearing everything apart and all Keith can do is watch. Even if he knows he’s made the right decision— even if he will never regret saving Shiro— he feels remorse as everything he and Shiro held dear is devastated right before their eyes. 

In the shadow of the lighthouse, they’re safe. The storm doesn’t come for them. 

Shiro finds Keith’s hand and holds. Palm to palm, Keith finds some power in it, some reassurance that Shiro is here and alive. 

He knows it’s disrespectful to look away, but he can’t help but find Shiro’s eyes. Shiro’s already looking back at him, expression mournful. 

“I love you, too,” Shiro whispers to Keith, voice so quiet. He manages a little smile, heartbroken though it is, and Keith returns the gesture. He touches Shiro’s face, cupping his cheek, and Shiro closes his eyes to lean into it. 

The world is still, if only for a moment, as if it’s just Shiro and Keith. Keith drops his hand to take Shiro’s again, threading their fingers together. He won’t let go again. Together, they turn back to watch the storm. 

Keith doesn’t know what will happen next. But all he can do is trust himself to protect Shiro. All he can do is trust that they’re going to be okay. 

And they watch, together, as their home is destroyed.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) (including the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/commentbuilder)), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:
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>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
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**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I'd Choose the Storm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315938) by [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten)




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